


your whole life is here (no eleventh hour reprieve)

by picnokinesis



Series: The Roads That Forgot How To Speak [2]
Category: Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: Alternate Universe – Human, Angst, Blood, Case Fic, Injury, Multi, Panic, Seizures, Spy Nonsense, Unethical Human Experimentation, and no one more than the doctor, biohacking, does it count as real person fic, everyone has a bad day, if i’m writing about historical figures in an au of chib’s real person fic, mild body horror, non-chameleon arch related amnesia, oh so much angst, taka rewrites spyfall but with significantly less nazis and significantly more ruth content, the TARDIS is a campervan, the doctor is an investigative journalist, the doctor is genderqueer, the master is a pain
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-02-18
Updated: 2021-03-11
Packaged: 2021-03-14 10:02:15
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 4
Words: 26,241
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29540697
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/picnokinesis/pseuds/picnokinesis
Summary: "Everything that you think you know is a LIE."The Doctor has been taken. Yaz, Ryan and Graham are facing certain death. And O - well, he's not what he seemed. He never was. And it's up to the Doctor to stop him before everything else falls apart around her, even as she questions the scattered memories that make up the past she thought she knew.
Relationships: Thirteenth Doctor & Ada Lovelace, Thirteenth Doctor & The Master (Dhawan), Thirteenth Doctor & Yasmin Khan & Graham O'Brien & Ryan Sinclair, Thirteenth Doctor/The Master (Dhawan)
Series: The Roads That Forgot How To Speak [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2018620
Comments: 58
Kudos: 31





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> HEY! Welcome back to the nonsense! *kazoo noises* I've been so excited to start posting, so I really hope you all enjoy it! Just like last time, this part is completely written, and I'll be posting weekly.
> 
> For those who have just stumbled across this fic - I highly recommend that you go back and read part one first if you want to make any sense of this story haha. Reading this first would be pretty much exactly like skipping Spyfall Part 1 and jumping straight into Spyfall Part 2 rip. Of course, if you want to, be my guest - I have nothing but respect for your chaotic energy. 
> 
> Again, a MASSIVE thank you for everyone who has cheered me on with this project, and to my wonderful beta (@theplatinthehat) who has had to put up with all the chaos in this fic
> 
> The title comes from the song [Breathe](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wCEzoOpG1zQ) by Alexi Murdoch

Darkness.

_– the flickering of images behind her eyes –  
– her heartbeat, too loud, too fast –_

She can’t breathe.

_– a field of grass –_

_No_ –

_– there’s laughter,  
she’s running,  
and the sky is so blue  
bluer than she’s ever seen it–_

No, she _can breathe,_ but –

_– the flash of a red shirt –_  
  


_– light in the dark –_

She gasps, eyes snapping open – only they’re not really open and she’s not really breathing because this isn’t real, this isn’t _right,_ this isn’t waking up _she isn’t awake_ –

She jolts upright, looking around with frantic eyes. But she doesn’t know where she is. All around her is _emptiness,_ just nothingness stretching on forever. A devastating void; a limbo of the likes she’s never experience before.

Is she inside her own head?

She turns around, like the view will be any different behind her. It isn’t.

Is she _dead?_

Her not-breaths are coming sharp and fast, panicked.

_No._

No. Not panicked. Because even if she’s dead and/or stuck in her own head, and even if she doesn’t have an audience to pretend for, she’ll be damned if she lets her fear take over her. No. She’s the _Doctor,_ and _she’s the one in charge here._

Also, frankly, it would be incredibly embarrassing to hyperventilate to the point of collapse inside her own mind, if that’s where she is.

That really would be a new low.

“Ok,” she says out loud – or not-out-loud, _whatever,_ she doesn’t know and she’s beyond caring. “Hi Doctor! Oh hi! How you doing?”

Her voice echoes dimly, radiating out into the nothing.

Of course, there is no response.

(She decides that’s probably a good thing).

(Or maybe just less of a bad thing – no, focus, _focus –_ )

She swallows.

“Good,” she replies to herself. “All good. Just…talking to myself to prove I’m still alive.”

It proves precious little.

A shiver ripples through her, and she shudders. It’s inexplicably _cold,_ wherever this is.

And the dark –

She doesn’t like the dark.

For a moment, she hysterically wonders if she’s lost her memories all over again – waking up in a strange, unfamiliar place just like last time. But then she realises that she _remembers_ the last time. And she remembers her name – yes, she _definitely_ remembers that, both the one she chose for herself and that terrible one she was abandoned with. And she remembers –

A shaky breath escapes from her throat.

She remembers how she got here.

What came before this –

“– _Got you,”_ _he growls,  
eyes blazing,  
as the cold metal burrows  
into her skin  
“ **Finally** –”_

Her hand lurches up to the back of her neck without her even thinking about it, her pulse spiking. But she finds it smooth, the skin unbroken. There’s no Kasaavin there.

But then, she supposes, if she’s unconscious – or _dead –_ it wouldn’t be here with her…wherever this is.

Kasaavin, though – _that’s what this is_ , and suddenly it makes sense. She’s not dead, she’s just…in a trance. Just like Yaz was. Her mind has been shoved out of the driving seat, and her body is left somewhere out there, staring at nothing and completely defenceless.

She swallows down the nausea that immediately rises at the thought.

“Don’t panic,” she says to herself, trying to imagine the others are here with her, imagining what she’d say to them. But of course, they’re not here. She’s alone – completely, _utterly_ alone, with no way out, and no hope of rescue, her surrogate family locked in a lab that’s rigged to blow.

She bites her lip, refusing to sob.

How long has she been here?

Has it been ten minutes yet?

_Are they all already dead?_

She pushes herself to her feet, her heartbeat too loud in her ears.

She has to get out of here. She needs to get out, get that _thing_ off her neck, lock O in a cupboard somewhere, get out of wherever he’s taken her and save her friends.

That’s all – five simple steps.

Simple.

Yep.

She’s already looking forward to step three.

There’s just the _slight niggle_ of having no idea how to wake up.

Yaz couldn’t – dammit, even when they’d taken the thing _off_ her, she’d been out for far too long. And if this Kasaavin is really blocking the signals between her brain and her body, there’s not going to be much she can do from the inside.

But there’s _got to be._

She’s _not going to sit here and do nothing!_

She can’t, she _won’t_ –

“ _Hello?”_

She freezes.

For a moment, there’s nothing.

She doesn’t dare make a sound.

Then –

_“Hello?”_

It comes again.

“Hello?” she replies, straining her ears. How can there _be a voice_ here? Where had it even come from? She turns on the spot, looking around her – but there’s just nothingness. A vast plain of everlasting empty.

“ _Hello?”_

Behind her. She spins on her heels, already breaking into a run.

“Hello!” she shouts back, a desperate kind of hope blossoming dangerously in her chest. “Can you hear me?”

“ _Can you hear me?”_ the voice repeats – but it’s louder this time. Stronger. Slightly to her right – she pauses, then adjusts her trajectory.

“Yes!” she replies. There’s something about the voice that’s familiar – something that she _knows,_ but she can’t quite place it here, scrambling for context in the dark. “I can hear you! Keep talking – I’m trying to find you! Somehow…”

She’s got to be close now, she’s _got_ to be.

“ _Doctor, can you hear me?”_

She stops suddenly, almost stumbling.

Right in front of her, like a blazing beacon in the emptiness, is a door.

Her heart is in her throat, climbing out of her chest in a desperate bid for freedom.

 _A way out,_ part of her hisses. _An exit!_

She steps towards it.

 _No,_ another part of her argues, _no, it’s just a door! This isn’t real. Nothing means anything here._

Another step.

 _Leave it shut,_ something else whispers – something quiet and small and very, very afraid. _Please. Just leave it shut._

She’s close enough now that she can see the grains in the wood, the scratches in the surface. She runs her hand over it, and the paintwork peels away under her fingers, pale flakes fluttering into the darkness.

She hardly dares to breathe.

“ ** _Doctor_** _,”_ the voice says, urgent. “ ** _Please_** _.”_

She’s scared.

She’s _terrified._

But she always has been – for as long as she can remember, and probably long before that. And so, she will do what she always does.

She will take her fear with both hands, hold it tightly to her chest, and –

And do something really, _really_ stupid.

Her face scrunches up into a determined grimace, and before she can think any better of it, she reaches down and grabs the metal doorknob, twisting it with a sharp jerk of her wrist. The door swings open easier than she expects, and she falls through, unbalanced, out into a blinding white and –

And –

She wakes, and _immediately_ regrets it.

 _“Owww…”_ she groans, eyes still closed. She presses her hands against her face, like maybe she can hold her headache back with the power of her will. _Gah._ It feels like something’s been dropped on her head and her skull has cracked right open, her brains pouring out onto the –

Onto the –

She registers that she’s lying down on something hard.

“ _Doctor,”_ says the voice – that same voice. A woman. “Doctor, can you hear me?”

Technically speaking, yes, she can hear perfectly well – she has _always_ been able to hear, actually. Her capacity to respond, however, is – she’s going to go with _limited._ She’s got a headache that’s rivalling the one she got when she _lost all her memories,_ so even the _idea_ of talking or doing anything other than just _lying here_ is enough to make the pain even _worse._

She opts for waving a hand instead, before immediately returning it to press against her eyelids. The voice sighs.

“I’m sorry,” the voice says, urgent – and she _knows that voice,_ if only she could _think_ through the screaming in her brain. “I know it hurts. But I _really_ need you to get up.”

Oh –

_Someone needs her._

That changes things.

That _always_ changes things.

She forces her eyes open, squinting against the harsh light of the room. Gah, she can barely even see, but someone needs her to get up, so she _will._ She pushes herself up onto her elbow, blinking – get used to it, _get used to it,_ come on come _on_. It takes a moment, but gradually the bright blur in front of her gains contrast, gains coherence, even as the light is like daggers in her eyes. But it’s fine – it’s just pain. Just pain.

And someone needs her.

“Doctor?”

Her eyes open as fully as they can, and she turns her head, looking the woman stood beside her – and _hope_ suddenly bursts in her chest. The person before her is in different clothes, pristine white scrubs rather than the bedraggled coat and hat she last saw her in, but she’d recognise that face _anywhere._

“ _Oh,_ ” she says, and she can’t help but grin as the woman’s brow furrows with concern, gripping tightly onto the screwdriver in her hand. “Ada, am I _glad_ to see you.”

Ten minutes.

Nothing feels real.

Yaz wastes precious seconds in a moment of shock as she stares at the door that has just slammed shut, the three of them on one side and the Doctor on the other. Taken by those soldiers, the ones who had put that awful device on her neck, and trapped with –

With O.

Or rather, whoever he _really_ was.

“What do we do?” Ryan says, the raw panic in his voice snapping her out of her thoughts. “ _What do we do?”_

Nine minutes, fifty seconds.

She jolts herself out of her daze, lunging towards the door, pushing down the handle and shoving her shoulder against it when it remains closed. She shouts in frustration.

“It’s _locked,_ ” she says, throwing herself against it once more for good measure – but of course, it doesn’t even budge.

“You need that card!” Graham says, already bending down to grab it off the floor where O had tossed it at them. He moves over to her, card held out towards her like an offering as he looks around the frame of the door. “There’s gotta be a pad for it somewhere, where is it?”

“There _isn’t,_ ” Yaz says, looking herself. Because this door, unlike every other one they’ve passed through in this place, has no access pad of any kind – not even a number pad. No. That would be too easy, wouldn’t it? “It must only be on the other side.”

Panic rises like bile in her throat, but she swallows it down.

 _Stay calm,_ she thinks, dragging up her police training. _Think!_

“What about the other doors?” Ryan says. Yaz turns to look at him, and finds him reaching down in the place where the Doctor had stood less than two minutes before. As he stands again, she sees he’s holding the notebook she’d dropped. O’s notebook. “It’s got the codes in the back, don’t it?”

“But there’s those blasted thumbscanners,” Graham says, his face twisting with fury and fear, throwing down keycard in his hand with disgust. “That bastard knew this thing would be useless. _He knew it!_ ”

“There’s gotta be a way,” Ryan says. “There’s _gotta be.”_

Nine minutes.

 _Think,_ Yaz chides herself. _THINK._

Her training says consider their options, consider their resources. Don’t focus on what they don’t have. What _do_ they have? What can they use?

Their options? Two locked doors.

Their resources? A useless keycard, a notebook, and a bunch of scientific equipment they don’t know how to use.

 _No –_ that’s not helpful.

 _THINK,_ she screams at herself, clinging desperately to the thin veneer of calmness that she’s draped over her terror. _There’s a way out. There’s ALWAYS a way out._

That’s what the Doctor would have said.

What would the Doctor do now?

She’d –

She’d make more options for herself.

She’d take her fear and make it work in her favour.

She’d –

Yaz’s eyes land on the large dark window on the wall opposite her – it must lead through into some kind of observation room, like the ones they saw that first night they came here.

Her gaze flicks to a fire extinguisher sat against the wall.

The Doctor would do something _really stupid._

“Get back,” she says suddenly, grabbing the keycard off the floor and shoving it in her pocket, before pushing past Graham and reaching for the fire extinguisher _._ “And cover your eyes!”

“You what?!” says Graham.

“Just do it!” she snaps, before hefting the fire extinguisher as high as she can and throwing it right at the window.

_CRASH!_

Yaz flinches back, covering her face for a moment, before she looks up to marvel at her handiwork.

Sharp diamonds cover every inch of worksurface and its equipment, glittering in the harsh fluorescent light. The window before her now bears a gaping maw, lined with shard-like teeth and opening out into the darkness of the observation room beyond.

And on the wall, by the door within that room, she spies the flashing red light of a keypad.

She can help but grin.

“ _Nice one,”_ Ryan says.

She ducks her head, before racing over to clamber over the worksurface, glass crunching under her shoes. “Come on!”

“Well, I certainly didn’t plan to hang about,” Graham quips from behind her, clearly trying to lighten the mood, but he doesn’t quite manage to hide the nervousness from his voice.

She can understand _that_ feeling.

Eight minutes.

Climbing through the hole is precarious, especially having to clamber over equipment when she can’t use the window frame for balance without cutting her hands open. But she manages it as quickly as she can. Of the three of them, she’s going to find that part the easiest. Ryan chucks the notebook through ahead of him, and she offers her hand as he shuffles on unsteady feet. He nearly loses his balance, and she winces as he knocks his hand against the jagged shards around the mouth of the hole.

“You ok?” she asks, even though she can’t afford for him not to be.

“Fine,” he says, but the way his grip is cutting off the circulation in her hand says otherwise. He stumbles off and onto the floor, just about managing to stay on his feet, before they both turn to help Graham through the gap. The whole time, Yaz’s mind is racing ahead of her, mapping out the route they need to take. From here, the corridor, then through the labs, then another corridor – then there’s the lift, and, presumably, the stairs. Instinctively, she wants to take the stairs, but she doesn’t know exactly where they are, or how many flights there are, and for Ryan that option is like being asked to run an obstacle race.

Seven minutes.

Graham gets off the counter.

The stairs aren’t an option.

But the lift –

“Are you alright?” Graham asks Ryan as the latter turns to pick up O’s notebook, one arm held to his chest. “Your hand –”

“Come on,” Yaz interrupts – there’s no time, _no time._ She’s already at the door, pushing the keycard against it. It falls open and she runs, the sound of the other two’s footfalls following right after her. She counts the seconds under her breath, polyrhythmic against the ostinato of her heart and the pattern of her breathing. Does she even know if they have ten minutes? He could have been lying. He could have set it before – she doesn’t _know_ for sure how much time they have.

She’s just got to make sure they’re fast _enough._

Down corridors, through doors, past the open space lab. Another door. Another flashing keypad. Another corridor.

Five minutes

The lift doors stand before her, monolithic and unfeeling. She jabs at the button in a rapid burst, her panic spilling out. Behind her, she can hear Ryan and Graham, all hard breathing and the slap of shoes soles against the floor. But she doesn’t turn to look at them – doesn’t dare tear her eyes away from the lift, practically shaking with the need to move.

 _Please be fast enough,_ she prays. _Please please please please –_

Four minutes, thirty seconds.

“Yaz,” Graham says as he reaches her side, breathless. “Shouldn’t we take –”

“No,” she says. She’s gone over it already. This is the only way. “There’s not enough time.”

“But if this place comes down and we’re in that thing –” he starts – but then falters as the lift pings, the doors sliding open.

“I _know,_ ” she says, stepping inside, “but we won’t be in it. Come on!”

The two of them jump in behind her, and she jabs at the buttons before she can question how wise this decision is. The doors stay open, and it feels like they’re taking _forever_ to slide shut, but in reality, it must only be seconds ticking by. But a few seconds are so precious – _too precious_ to waste. And they’re just slipping away like water through her fingers, impossible to hold onto.

Four minutes.

The lift doors still aren’t shut.

She jabs the buttons again, panic flaring.

“It’s not working,” she hisses. “Why isn’t it –”

“The card,” Ryan says. “You gotta use the keycard.”

 _Of course._ Stupid, stupid, stupid. She pulls the card out, feeling more seconds pour away, her heartbeat pounding in her throat.

The doors close.

The lift moves up with a lurch.

Three minutes, thirty seconds.

Yaz looks at Graham’s face, and she can see he thinks this is a bad idea. She knows what’s going through his head. She’s heard of it before – people surviving explosions because they were in the stairwell, the most reinforced part of any building. She saw it on a documentary once – some firefighters who went into the Twin Towers on 9/11. They were rescuing someone who collapsed on the stairs, couldn’t go any further. Moments later, the whole building had come down around them – but they’d survived, having stopped in just the right space.

But the rest of the stairs had been destroyed.

If they’d kept going, they wouldn’t have made it.

She can’t risk that.

She _won’t_ put her life – their lives – to that kind of chance.

And she can see in Graham’s face that it’s not just concern, not just dread. There’s trust there too.

He trusts her.

He jumped in the lift with her – pulled Ryan in with her.

He sees her looking at him, and nods, reassuring. She tries to smile back, but can’t quite manage it.

“Come on,” Ryan mutters, staring at the doors like it’ll make them open any faster. “ _Come on._ How long have we got? How long has it been?”

It feels like forever.

It feels like no time at all.

It feels like swimming through mud, like any second everything is going to end.

“I don’t know,” Graham says. “I got no idea.”

Two minutes, thirty seconds.

The doors open with a _ding!_

Yaz leaps out the moment the doors have opened far enough, racing towards the main doors. She’s the fastest of all of them, and she’s got the keycard – she’ll get to the door first, hold it open for them. Then they need to just keep running, as far as they can get – how far is going to be safe enough? Maybe just being out of the building will be enough, but she doesn’t know, _she doesn’t know –_

“Come _on!”_ she shouts to them as they run towards her, Ryan first, stumbling out the door, Graham hot on his heels.

“I got it, keep running!” he says to her, and so she lets go of the door, following Ryan down the steps. She overtakes him easily, ending up at the bottom and resisting the urge to sprint across the car park. She is _not_ leaving them behind.

“Sorry,” Ryan says as he reaches her, gripping O’s notebook in one hand. He’s still holding his other hand close to his chest, and she can see blood dripping off it. She decides not to think about it, instead looking at Graham, who is almost at the bottom of the stairs.

“Go!” he says – but neither of them move until he’s with them, and together they break into run across the mercifully flat tarmac.

One minute.

Yaz reaches the furthest edge of the carpark, and turns to look back at the building behind them. It stands tall against the night sky, stark in the floodlights. Like Barton couldn’t bear the thought of it not being seen at all times – like he demanded that everyone turn their gaze upwards to marvel in his glory.

She wonders how much of the building will go when the basement blows out. 

She wonders if the Doctor is still in there.

Thirty seconds.

“How far do we need to be?” she asks, like any of them are going to know.

“As far as humanely possible, is what I’m going for,” Graham huffs, looking back once, before grabbing Yaz’s arm. She suddenly realises she’s standing stock still, almost frozen to the spot as she stares. “Come on, cockle. We gotta get to the other side of the street at least.”

“She might still be in there,” she says. “She might –”

“She won’t be,” Graham says. “‘Cos if that bastard wanted her dead, he’d’ve left her right there with us.”

That’s true. And that’s the only comfort she can take as she nods, forcing herself to look away. Graham squeezes her arm, before glancing left and right and haring it across the empty street. She follows his lead, Ryan quick on her heels.

Her feet have just landed on the pavement on the other side of the road when VOR explodes.

The ground shakes violently as a thunderous **_BOOM_** rolls out, resonating right down into her bones. She’s knocked over with the force of it, hands grazing against the tarmac, her ears ringing as the glass in all those long windows across the whole of the VOR building shatter simultaneously, raining down onto the place they had stood only a minute ago. Yaz scrambles backwards, looking behind her, and she sees smoke already beginning to billow out of the building, the flickering of a fire beginning in the foyer. Her breaths are coming in rapid gasps, her brain in overdrive.

They’re alive.

_They’re alive._

She can’t quite help the laugh that tumbles from her lips, a little more hysterical than she’d like.

“ _Yes!_ ” Ryan says, getting unsteadily to his feet. “YES! _GET IN!!_ What was that about no _HOPE,_ Mr O!”

“We did it,” she says, feeling like she’s floating, like nothing is quite real.

“Too right we did,” Graham says, and she turns back to look at him. He’s stood up already, and offers her his hand. She takes it gratefully, pulling herself up, feeling shakier than she’d like. But it’s all just excess adrenaline raging through her, making sure she stays alive. That she keeps her _friends_ alive.

Graham gives her a firm pat on the shoulder.

“Good job in there, cockle,” he says. “The Doc would’ve been proud of you.”

She tries to smile at that, but she can’t. Her gaze flicks back to VOR, watching the smoke swell into a cloud as the fire crackles. The image of the Doctor comes to mind – the last moment they saw her, being dragged out by those soldiers and screaming for them to get out.

“We’ve got to find her,” she says, the words rushing out, desperate. Her throat is choked with emotion. “Graham –”

“I know, love,” he says, sounding pained. “We’ll find her.”

 _But how,_ she wants to ask, but she refuses to. She won’t fall into hopelessness. She can figure this out – they _all_ can.

They have to.

“They could be anywhere by now,” Ryan says, sombre after his momentary exuberance. “We don’t even know where they’re headed.”

“No,” Graham says, “no, I reckon we do. See, ‘cos the other night when you lot were off sneaking into that lab, I was watching O fiddle with that card of his. And he said summat about the GPS. Reactivating it.”

“But _we’ve_ got his card, Grandad,” Ryan says. “Besides, how are we gonna track the GPS in some card anyway?”

“But the Doctor has the other card,” Yaz says, thoughts picking up speed. She turns to Graham. “Did he deactivate the GPS on that one, or just on his?”

“Don’t ask me,” Graham says. “But that laptop of his is back at his place, and he’s probably got some program on there to track it with – I reckon it’s worth a shot, right?”

Yaz nods – it’s a bit of a long shot, but she can’t help feeling a small kernel of hope begin to bloom in her chest. It feels risky, letting it grow there, but she can’t bring herself to pull it up. “It’s the best we got.”

They don’t have any other leads, after all.

“Right,” Graham says, before looking at Ryan, brow pinched. “How’s your hand, son?”

Ryan holds out the hand he’d been holding close to his chest, opening it gingerly. The palm has been sliced right open, wound gaping, and Yaz winces.

“That doesn’t look good,” she says, guilt blooming at the fact she hadn’t properly checked he was ok earlier.

But then, there’d been no time.

“Hurts a bit,” Ryan admits, sounding like it hurts a _lot,_ actually, closing his hand again. “But it’s fine.”

Graham shakes his head, adamant. “You’re getting that looked at, son – by someone who knows what they’re doing.”

“There’s no time, Grandad,” he argues. “We _need_ to find the Doctor.”

And Yaz hates herself for it, but she can’t help but feel torn. Because Graham is right, it looks like Ryan needs stitches – but every moment that goes by, the Doctor is getting further and further away from them. And she’s with those soldiers, the likes of the one who had grabbed her last night. What would they _do_ to her?

She thinks of the cold metal brushing across her neck, of wires cutting into her – of her mind _shutting down –_ and the skin under the gauze on her neck prickles uncomfortably.

“And you need to not be bleeding, Ryan,” Graham shoots back. “No arguments.”

“But –”

“What if I take you A&E or something?” Yaz says. “Then I’ll go to O’s place, grab the laptop and bring it back to you, and we can try figuring it out together. And I’ll call local police – they’re probably going to have better luck than us anyway.”

“But you gotta tell them where you last saw her – how you gonna explain all _that?_ ” Graham says, waving a hand at the smoking building on the other side of the street.

“I don’t – I don’t know yet,” she snaps back. “But – I’ve got to try.”

She has to.

Because if they can’t get O’s laptop to work…

“Come on,” she says, pushing the thought out of mind. If it doesn’t work, they’ll think of something else. Because there’s _no way_ they’re giving up on the Doctor. Not when they only just got her back. She pats her pockets, checking for the spare TARDIS key that the Doctor had given her about a year ago. She’d been honoured at the time, and she’s incredibly grateful for it now. “If we’re gonna do this, let’s go.”

She glances at Ryan, and his face is twisted – with pain or guilt, she doesn’t know. Maybe both.

“Ryan, come on, son,” Graham says, almost pleading. “The quicker we get you sorted, the quicker we can go after the Doc.”

Ryan meets his grandad’s eyes, and something he must see there makes his expression soften, his shoulders sink down. He nods, throat bobbing, holding his hand close to his chest.

“Alright then,” Graham says, already making a move, heading towards the street where the Doctor parked the TARDIS less than an hour ago. When they’d been a party of five, not three.

So much has changed in that time.

“Alright then,” she echoes, adrenaline and determination filling the cavity of her chest, squashing down the anxiety, the fear. They can do this. _They can._ “Let’s get moving.”

“Doctor, we need to go,” Ada says, her voice urgent. “Can you walk?”

The Doctor pushes herself up completely, blinking against the swirl of pain that fizzes behind her eyes.

“Yep, I’m good,” she says as she pushes herself off – a table? Why had she been lying on a table? She tries to look around the room, figure out where the hell she might be, but quick movements, it turns out, are a _bad_ idea, and only cause her headache to spike with intensity. She grimaces, but powers through it. “Lead the way.”

Ada hesitates, very briefly, like she doesn’t quite believe the Doctor is all fine. But clearly whatever she’s so anxious about trumps any concerns she might have, as she quickly turns on her heels and starts across the room, heading towards the door. The Doctor follows her, bumping into more furniture along the way as she tries to get herself to walk steady.

“Quickly,” Ada says as she opens the door a crack, checking the way is clear before she braves the corridor beyond. Her voice is choked with barely contained fear. “They’ll be back.”

“Who will be?” she presses, following Ada out of the room, bracing a hand against the wall as she goes. Who’s keeping them here? Those soldiers, clad in black? Scientists from VOR? Barton?

_O?_

“Later,” Ada says, her voice crushed into a whisper. “Just stay with me.”

The Doctor doesn’t reply, biting back the deluge of questions that threaten to pour out of her mouth. Where are they? What’s happening? How is Ada _here?_ What _happened to her?_

But of course, it all makes _so much sense –_ so much sense that it’s almost painful she didn’t connect the dots before. Because _of course_ Ada is here. The participants from the consent forms – so many with addresses in Sheffield, and everyone they’d spoken to either from a house that had been repossessed or a family who didn’t want to talk about it. And then the local homeless community, periodically disappearing – and Ada had even _seen them._ Figures all in black, wearing helmets.

She should have _known._

She should have _seen it._

She’s never had two separate cases. It’s always been the same one.

Her head still pounds, but it subsides enough that she manages to lift her head up, eyes falling on the back of Ada’s neck. Through the strands of her dark brown hair, she can make out the telltale silver curve of a Kasaavin.

A frown creases her face suddenly as an image rises to the surface of her mind. The participants at night in the lab, lying prone on their beds. Unable to move – unable to escape.

“Ada,” she whispers. “How are you _awake?_ How are you –?”

“ _Shh,_ ” Ada hisses, urgent. She stops suddenly, her whole body tense with fear. The Doctor halts in tandem, and makes to lean around Ada to try and see what’s spooked her so much – but then she hears it.

Voices.

“ _Quick!_ ” Ada says, reaching back to grab her arm in a white-knuckled grip, immediately yanking the Doctor across the corridor in a way that doesn’t help _at all_ with her headache, now compounded with the fierce bolts of sensation that surge across her skin at the sudden contact. But she doesn’t say anything – isn’t really in a position to do _anything_ about it as Ada opens the first door she sees and pulls her into –

A maintenance cupboard?

Ada shuts the door quick, but _quiet,_ plunging them into complete darkness, save the slithers of light that seep through the vent on the door, dividing Ada’s face with white stripes. The Doctor watches as she clamps her hand across her mouth, a desperate attempt to keep her breathing as silent as possible. Her grip is still ironclad around the Doctor’s wrist, sending shudders of intense discomfort roiling through her. Any other time, she would yank her wrist free, but if she knocks something in here, if she makes _any sound at all –_

She can hear the voices outside, louder now. Close enough to sharpen vague sounds into meaning, into _words._

Into voices she recognises, she realises with a chill.

“– all went according to plan, I take it?” says Barton.

“You should have seen me,” O replies, the manic grin that must be stretched across his face outpouring into his tone. She can practically see it – remembers how he’d looked in that lab, sharklike, stark against the fluorescent lights. “I was _great!_ She didn’t have a _clue_ who I was _._ ”

“I thought you _wanted_ her to recognise you,” Barton bites back, sounding unimpressed.

 _“Careful_ ,” O warns, the pure danger in that one word sounding so different to the man she knows.

Or, rather the man she _thought_ she knew.

“Mmhm,” Barton says, still not intimidated. They’re so close now – they must be walking right past the cupboard. She feels Ada’s hand flex against her wrist, grip tightening, and the Doctor has to screw her eyes shut, forcing herself to focus on the conversation outside the door rather than the constricting feeling that’s wrapping around her chest, the pounding in her head.

“I still think it was _entirely unnecessary_ to destroy the lab,” Barton continues, his tone growing more irritated. “The waste of _resources,_ the loss of _data –”_

The sound of footsteps falter.

“It _was necessary,_ ” O growls, and his voice is still close – he must have stopped near the cupboard. “The evidence is gone, and you’ve got some conveniently _dead_ scapegoats to pin the explosion on. Your precious _resources_ are of little concern, given your contacts. And _data data data,_ that’s _all_ you go _on_ about – frankly, it’s _infuriating._ ”

“The _data,_ ” Barton snaps back, “is _everything._ But of course, I wouldn’t expect _you_ to understand something so subtle.”

“ _Watch your tone,_ Mr Barton,” O snarls, his voice dripping with danger. “I’m not one of your employees.”

“No,” Barton responds, smooth. “Whose employee _are you,_ exactly?”

“Nobody’s.” The word snaps, crisp in the air. “That’s the whole point. But then, I wouldn’t _expect you_ to understand that.”

There are footsteps again. Moving away.

“Don’t forget where we stand in this, Barton,” O says. “Don’t forget what this whole endeavour would be without _me_ in the picture.”

Her ears just about pick up Barton’s huff as they move down the corridor. “Please, enlighten me.”

“It would be _pathetic,_ ” O says, quieter now. “Embarrassing, actually.”

Barton responds, but the clarity of his words is dulled, faded over the growing distance. It’s less than a minute before the Doctor can’t hear them at all – can’t hear _anything_ except the thumping of her pulse in time with the pounding in her head. Her chest feels even tighter, barely able to breathe with the anxiety of the contact, and she yanks her wrist towards her, trying to break free. Ada doesn’t let go, hanging on in a way that’s probably _instinctual,_ but just twists the anxiety even tighter around the Doctor’s lungs.

“ _Ada,”_ she hisses, urgent – and the woman lets go.

“Sorry,” Ada breathes, just as the Doctor’s chest abruptly loosens, suddenly free. “Sorry, I just – I was so sure they were going to hear us.”

The Doctor doesn’t say anything, running her hand over her wrist, like maybe she can rub away the awful sensation on skin on skin.

“That man,” Ada says, frown crinkling in the dim light. “He’s been here before. He was _with you. Before._ Back in _Sheffield.”_

The Doctor swallows.

“Yes,” she says, the word scraping the air.

“You _know him,_ ” Ada says – not accusatory, even if maybe it should be.

She should have known, somehow. She should have _seen._

She _introduced Ada to him._ He probably told the people who captured her. Made sure they knew it was _her_ who had seen them before.

It’s probably because of that conversation that Ada is even _here._

“I –” she says, breaking off. “I thought I did.”

“How did you end up here?” Ada presses. “Did he –?”

“Let’s get out of this cupboard first,” she interrupts, really not wanting to think about the last thing she remembers before her mind got shut down by the device that is still connected to her neck. About that last glimpse she caught of Yaz, Ryan and Graham, terrified for _her_ when they should have been more scared for themselves.

They’re most certainly dead by now.

 _NO,_ she thinks, forcing the thought down, crushing it. _They got out. They had to. They’re alive, and they’re safe._

She doesn’t know what she’s going to do if they aren’t.

She thinks of Grace, probably on nightshift right now. She imagines her in her house alone sometime tomorrow, waiting to hear from them. Waiting for them to come home.

Waiting for ghosts, and the person too scared to return and tell her how she got her family killed.

“Alright,” Ada says, somewhat reluctant, snapping her out of her thoughts as she reaches for the door handle. She opens the door a crack, peering out. “Stay close to me.”

“You have somewhere safe to go?” the Doctor asks.

“I wouldn’t call it safe,” Ada replies, pushing the door out fully. “But better than here.”

That’s all the Doctor can ask for right now, she supposes.

The two of them make their way through the corridors, which seem like even more of a maze than VOR did. It’s hard to make sense of what she’s seeing – or maybe that’s just because her head is still pounding. She can’t even figure out what kind of building she’s in – it feels run down, almost industrial, with pipes running along the walls and unpainted concrete underfoot. Where are they? Why was she taken _here?_ Why have any of the participants been taken here? O had said he’d got them moved – so this must be some another VOR facility. Or just some kind of temporary holding place whilst they figure out a more permanent solution to _blowing up their own lab._

He planned it all, knowing he’d take her and leave the others behind to die. He must have known she’d come that evening. Or maybe, if she hadn’t been, he’d probably been planning to talk her round to it.

But of course, he hadn’t needed to.

Maybe he’d just known.

He knows her.

_He knows her._

More than she knows herself.

And she doesn’t know him at all.

It had _all_ been a lie – every inch of it. The emails, the friendship, that night on the roof – the way she’d thought he’d _cared_ about her, but it had just been – it hadn’t been _anything._ Just a means to an end.

She should have known better, she thinks, that familiar anticipation of abandonment bristling in her chest.

_She should have seen it coming._

Ada pauses at a junction, peering around the corner, before moving forward again. The Doctor glances over her shoulder, before following her along. Moments later, they’ve stopped by a door. There’s a keypad, but Ada doesn’t seem phased at all, immediately using her screwdriver to prise open the casing, fiddling with the wires that are revealed underneath.

The Doctor can’t help but grin.

Oh, they’d bitten off more than they could chew by taking her.

There’s a shrill _beep,_ and the door pops open with a quiet hiss. Ada removes her hand from within the pad, clicking the cover back into place and pushing the door open enough for her to slip in. The Doctor stays right on her tail, pushing the door shut behind her the moment she’s inside. She squints, eyes assaulted by the brightness of the fluorescent lights, photons stabbing mercilessly at her retinas. She raises a hand to cover them, taking in the room before her –

And finding it full of _people_.

 _Awake_ people.

All wearing the plain white scrubs that Ada is sporting.

All with a metal disc attached to their necks.

“The participants,” she breathes. “You’re all the participants.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The chaos that is part two has officially begun!! *pulls party popper*
> 
> Let me know what you think! I hope the opening lived up to the hype from the cliffhanger last time.
> 
> I drew some cover art for this part, which you can find [right here](https://picnokinesis.tumblr.com/post/643488164633313280/the-doctor-has-been-taken-yaz-ryan-and-graham) on tumblr!


	2. Chapter 2

“How’d you do it?” the Doctor asks Ada a few minutes later, sitting on the floor. “And where’d you get a _screwdriver_ from?”

Ada hums, almost amused, from where she sits behind the Doctor, prising the casing off the Kasaavin on her neck with the tool in question. “Something’s wrong with the one they put on me, I think. It’s not connected right. I kept waking up when I wasn’t supposed to – hearing what they were talking about. Picking up things. I figured it was in my best interest not to let them know about it.”

“Good thinking,” the Doctor agrees, unable to stop herself grimacing as Ada’s fingers brush across her skin. It’s unavoidable – and necessary. “Though I’m guessing you weren’t able to get out whilst you were in VOR.”

“Not exactly,” she admits, just as the casing pops off. There’s a quiet clink of metal as she places it on the floor, somewhere out of the Doctor’s line of sight. “Couldn’t get out of the room there. But this place is different, nowhere near as high-tech. They must have cleared out all the cupboards before they stuck us in here, but the ceiling panels lift up – couldn’t get anywhere through them, but a workman must have left their toolkit by accident at some point because there were a bunch of things up there. I can’t understand why they moved us, though. Surely –”

“It was me,” she says. “I was doing some digging – got too close for their liking.”

“Sorry,” says one of the other participants – a pale-skinned man with a mop of brown hair. “But who are you, exactly?”

“I’m the Doctor,” she says – and normally she’d hold out her hand, accepting the sacrifice of her comfort for the sake of keeping up appearances. But right now, appearances can go and keep up somewhere else. With the Cardassians, or whatever that show is Ryan moans about. “Investigative journalist. I’ve been looking into VOR, last few days.”

The man frowns at her. “’The Doctor’? What sort of a name –?”

“The one I chose,” she interrupts, deciding to nip that one in the bud. “And also, really not important – the only thing you need to know right now is that I’m going to get you all out of here and somewhere safe.” Her eyes flick around the room, meeting eyes with the other participants that she can see without turning her head. “I promise you that.”

“And how _exactly_ are you going to do that?” asks the man. “Unless you hadn’t noticed, you’re stuck in here with the rest of us. And now they’ve put that thing on you, they could just shut you down at any time.”

She frowns. “I wouldn’t say we’re _stuck._ Ada got out just fine. And now she’s –” her frown deepens. “What _are_ you doing to that thing?”

“Taking a proper look. From what I heard the scientists saying, I figured out how to wake people up, but there’s still a lot I don’t get,” Ada replies, still fiddling with the Kasaavin. Something she does upsets it, and it sends a minor shock directly into the Doctor’s nervous system.

“Ow!” she yelps.

“Sorry!” Ada replies, before getting right back at it. “None of the others would let me mess with theirs.”

That is…not exactly a _comforting_ thought.

“Because those things keep _killing people_ ,” the man replies, stern. Ada doesn’t reply, but the Doctor can just about picture the look on her face – a fierce gaze to match the one this man is giving her over the Doctor’s shoulder.

“What’s your name?” the Doctor asks. “How’d you end up –” She waves a hand to encompass this whole mess.

“Charlie,” he tells her. “Charlie Babbage. I’m an engineer, and I – hit a rough spot, a while back. I was approached with the opportunity to take part in some clinical trials. Good payments, legitimate company – thought it would tide me over, that I’d be in safe hands.”

“Not so much,” she murmurs darkly.

“One way to put it.”

“Doctor,” Ada says, her hands stilling at her neck. There’s an edge of desperation to her voice. “The others from before – the other rough sleepers who went missing. Only some of them are here, and – there was one who they took away about a day or so ago. Only he didn’t come back. Did you find any others, before they took you? Do you know what happened to them? Where they took them?”

“Ada…” Babbage says, like he’s trying to warn her – but it’s too gentle for that.

The Doctor closes her eyes, and tries to pretend it’s because of the headache, and not because she can’t stand the look in Babbage’s eyes.

“I’m sorry, Ada,” she says.

“But not _all_ of them could have died –”

“I’m sorry,” she just says again.

What else can she say?

_Twenty of thirty dead._

And more, probably. Yaz had been right – there were more than thirty participants. Ada proves it – she couldn’t have been one of those original thirty, not when she was taken after she got the copies of the consent forms from O. How many had there been in total? Had he even shown her all the copies? Told her the true extent of it?

He probably had.

He’d done it to get her attention, after all. He’d have given her the most shocking information he could get his hands on at the time.

For a moment, there’s silence. The Doctor’s fists clench and unclench in her lap, before she forces herself to open her eyes, keeping her gaze fixed on the cold floor in front of her.

“What do you know?” she asks. “Tell me everything. Anything.”

They tell her. About how some of them had been approached – people about to lose their homes, unable to pay the bills. How others were already homeless, and either went voluntarily or were _persuaded_ to join the trials by threatening figures dressed in black. How they’d all been made to sign consent forms; been told they were testing out an advanced sort of wearable device. And at first, it had seemed like that. But gradually the experiments had grown more and more invasive and further from what they’d agreed to on those forms. Excessive, controlling, as the scientists had taken to _shutting them down_ overnight, preventing anyone from escaping. And of course, there had been those who had tried to _withdraw_ consent – and they had _appeared_ to have been allowed to leave. To make the whole thing seem reasonable.

“But there were somethin’ off about it,” one of the other participants tells her, a dark-skinned woman called Julia. “Felt like they were just being taken somewhere else, to make it look like it were all fine.”

“And now,” Babbage explains, “We’ve all been put back in here together – even a couple of people who _I_ thought had left the experiment weeks ago.”

“And the others who aren’t here…” the Doctor says, trailing off as her thoughts go down a darker route. “What were their names? Do you know?”

A couple of people reel off a few that they can remember.

The Doctor recognises all of them from the evidence that O had given to her.

The list of the dead.

“And, of course, they moved us today. Seem to have gotten careless,” Babbage continues. “Haven’t put us to sleep like before. And as you saw, Ada managed to get out – and find you, of course.”

“Why haven’t you all escaped?” the Doctor asks, brow creasing. “If Ada can get the door open, you could get out of here.”

But Julia is shaking her head, adamant.

“You don’t understand, hun,” she says, hand going up to the device on her neck, fingers ghosting over it nervously. “Those soldiers are out there, and – you ain’t seen what these things can do.”

“I’ve seen enough,” she says, even as dread creeps like frost across her chest. “I’ve been in that lab.”

Julia just keeps shaking her head. “There are worse things. People tried before – to get out. Trust me, we’re better off in here.”

“But we can’t just sit here and do _nothing,_ ” Ada argues.

“We’re _alive,_ ” Babbage argues. “We just need to _outlast_ this.”

“We need to figure out a way to _stop this,_ ” Ada snaps back.

“She’s right,” the Doctor says. “Barton’s trying to put this technology out to the public, and he’s getting people the same way he got all of you – making you think it’s one thing when it’s something else entirely. And people are buying into it.”

“Which is why I need to figure out how this thing works,” Ada says. “Because if I can get them _off us,_ we could _all_ get out of here.”

Babbage doesn’t look convinced. “ _If_ you can get them off...”

“Wait,” the Doctor says, practically kicking herself that she didn’t even _think_ to mention it earlier. “I know how to get them off.”

“What?” Ada and Babbage say in unison.

“But I need things,” she says, curbing their hopes. She’d only seen O do it once, after all, but she had a good enough understanding of the things he’d been talking about to be able to replicate it. She’s certain of it – she is _pretty brilliant_ when it comes to that sort of thing, after all. “A computer, connection wires. You can’t disconnect it without some kind of conduit.”

“ _Yes,”_ Ada replies. “I was beginning to think that.”

“Well that’s _great,_ ” Babbage says, testy. “But we’re not exactly going to be able to get our hands on a _computer,_ are we?”

“Not here,” the Doctor says, as Ada picks up the casing off the floor and clicks it back into place on the Doctor’s neck. She hears her move away, and the tightness in her chest from all the _touching_ begins to ease. She glances back, meeting Ada’s eyes. “But if we can get out _there_ again…there’s got to be something.”

And they might be able to figure out more of what’s going on – find out who the soldiers with the rhino logo are. Figure out what Barton’s _plan_ is.

Figure out who O really is.

She can’t help but reach out into the darkness of her mind, screaming into the oblivion, desperate to dredge up something, _anything_ from the depths. But all she gets are the vague, fleeting sensations she always gets when she tries to uncover everything that has been lost to her – there for a moment, indistinguishable, and then gone just as quickly as they came.

She didn’t even recognise him.

There’s _nothing_ of him in her mind.

(– except there is, isn’t there?)

(On that park bench, on that roof top –)

(In all the times she’d looked in his eyes and found something close to _home –)_

(But how could he be home when that person wasn’t even real?)

(How could _someone like that –)_

“Doctor?”

There’s a hand on her shoulder.

She can’t help but flinch away, jolting out of her thoughts. Ada immediately draws back, holding her hands up in apology.

“Sorry,” the Doctor says, blinking, dragging her mind out of its spiral. Her head is still pounding, persistent behind her eyes.

“Are you alright?” Babbage asks, frown furrowing with concern. She can’t help but bristle at the sight of it, hating to think how these people must be looking at her now.

“Fine,” she says, sharp. She pushes herself up onto her feet, springing into action. “Let’s go and see what we can find. Then once we’ve got something, we can come back here and –”

There’s a sound from the other side of the door.

Voices.

Babbage’s eyes widen – his head snaps, looking at Ada, who meets his gaze.

“The soldiers,” Ada says.

“Hide her,” he says, urgent. Ada just nods, before immediately grabbing the Doctor by the arm and dragging her over to one of the cupboards that line the room. She lets her lead her, the fear in her chest overshadowing the discomfort of the sudden touch. In the room full of participants, she is the only one not wearing those plain white scrubs, her dark jacket and colourful shirt sticking out like a sore thumb.

If those soldiers realise that she’s here –

They’ll know that people can get in and out of this room.

And there’s _no way_ they’ll let _that_ continue.

Ada yanks one of the doors open, before shoving the Doctor into the empty space behind it.

“Stay _quiet,_ ” she instructs.

“ _I know,”_ the Doctor hisses back, clambering inside. Just because she’s got a tendency to run her mouth…

Ada doesn’t deign her with a response, instead just shutting the door, sending the Doctor’s world plunging into darkness. There’s a brief, sharp spike in her anxiety, that hallmark of her inexplicable fear of the dark. Mentally, she lunges for it, desperate for any pitiful scrap of information she can get about her motheaten past. But it slips from her grasp, smoke between her fingers.

Before she really has time to think on it much further, there’s an electronic beep, and she hears the door opening.

She clenches her fists, barely daring to breathe.

Waiting to hear the sound of whoever has entered the room.

Why are they here? Do they know she’s escaped? Or are they moving them all again, taking them somewhere more secure?

What are they _planning?_

But when the voice speaks, it’s not the gruff voice of a soldier that she’d expected. It’s not even Barton’s, or the unfamiliar voice of a scientist.

No.

It’s someone far worse.

“ _Ladies and gentlemen,_ ” says O. “I have…an _important_ question to ask you.”

Yaz can’t help but grip the wheel nervously as she drives down the dark road towards O’s place, trying to resist the urge to go too fast. Trying to focus on what she’s actually doing through the anxiety churning in her gut.

The Doctor is gone.

Ryan is hurt.

The hospital she’d dropped the other two off at had looked busy, and she expects Ryan won’t exactly be prioritised since Graham had managed to get the bleeding to slow. It’s been a long time since she’s sat in an A&E – the last time was probably when Sonya had fallen off the climbing frame at the park, breaking her arm. It had been…mostly _boring,_ from what Yaz could remember. Sitting and waiting and staring at plain white walls until the nothingness felt like it was seeping into her bones.

She knows Graham and Ryan don’t find hospitals so dull. It had been obvious in both of them, in the tensing of their shoulders and the restlessness of their eyes when she’d left them. There are far too memories wrapped up in a place like that for both of them. She hadn’t really known Ryan when his mum had died – they’d gone to different secondary schools, and all that. But her mum had heard, somehow, in the way that mums do. And as for Graham – well, she knew enough about cancer to know that it would give someone plenty reason to not want to step foot in a hospital ever again.

The Doctor doesn’t like them either. Has always point blank refused to go in them, for reasons even she herself can’t explain.

Grace is probably the only one of them who feels at completely ease in those endless white halls.

But Ryan and Graham had both gone in, faces steeled for the worst, the former pressing his jacket against the injury on his hand.

And now Yaz is alone, driving the van of her missing friend.

For a while, she’d sat in silence, but her mind had quickly begun swirling out of control, thoughts spiralling into a hurricane. Out of habit, she’d reached out to flick on the CD player, only to find that listening to the familiar rhythms of the Doctor’s mixtape made her feel even _worse._ She’d switched it off before she even made it through the track that was playing, tuning into the radio instead.

It hadn’t helped much either.

But it’s better than silence.

It feels like it takes forever and then some, but she finally reaches the house, gravel crunching as she rolls the TARDIS up onto the driveway. She cuts the engine, pulling the keys out and looping her finger through the keyring, her fist tightening around it. She can’t help but hesitate for a moment before she opens the door, fear clutching at her lungs with frozen hands. She remembers all too well what had happened the previous night – how she’d got out the van and almost immediately been grabbed from behind. How they’d stuck that _thing_ on her neck.

Her other hand goes up to the injury in question, pressing against the gauze that the others had placed over the wound.

If there’s someone out there again –

There’ll be no one to save her this time.

 _No,_ she thinks to herself, a sense of grim determination growing in her chest. _Because this time, they need me to save them._

She reaches for the door handle and pushes it open, jumping out before she can change her mind, locking the TARDIS behind her. If someone steals that thing, the Doctor will _never_ forgive her. She stuffs the keys into her pocket, before pulling out her phone and turning on the torch. She scans the light into the deepest of the shadows around her, before sucking in a breath and stepping away from the van, towards the house. She makes it to the front steps without a problem, jogging up and reaching for the handle instinctively, not even thinking until she’s pushing it down that _actually_ she doesn’t have the house keys – she’s not going to be able to get in, she’s going to have to break a window or something or –

But the door swings open under her hand.

Her heart drops into her stomach.

There’s no lights on. No sound coming from the house.

But there’s someone in there.

Or, someone _was._ Maybe they left when the van rolled up onto the drive, making their getaway across the fields at the back whilst she’d been psyching herself up in the car.

Or maybe they’re still here.

Hiding.

Flickers of memory hit her – being lost in the nothingness, in the _cold,_ screaming into the emptiness of her own mind, thinking she was _dead –_

She swallows, fear filling her so completely she almost chokes on it.

But she steps into the dark anyway, holding her phone torch before her.

She can’t afford to wait.

 _The Doctor_ can’t afford for her to wait.

She turns on the light as she crosses through the doorway and into the main room. Everything looks just the same as it did only that afternoon, when they’d sat around the table and made their plans, all righteous anger and unwavering confidence. It had only been hours previous, but it feels like a lifetime ago, the distance of time like a canyon between there and where she stands now.

She wonders vaguely if that’s how the Doctor feels about her past. Out of reach. A ghost to her now.

She can still picture the look on her face in frightening clarity, looking down at that notebook covered in swirling biro.

Haunted.

She feels like that now. Like there’s something hiding in the shadows, waiting.

She shakes the thought from her mind, pushing herself into the room and up to the dining table. Amongst the tangle of wires and other oddments, she finds O’s laptop. She pulls it free, holding it close to her chest, before seeking out the charging wire from the mess before her. It only takes her a moment, but her heart is racing, like she knows, _she knows_ something’s about to happen, like she can _sense it,_ bristling at the edges of her awareness –

She untangles her prize, bundling it under her arm, and immediately looks around the room, expectant. But it’s empty – nothing has moved. Beyond the front window, all she can see is black.

But the feeling doesn’t leave her.

 _There’s something here,_ her mind hisses, all chattering primal instincts. _There’s SOMEONE HERE._

She turns, holding up her phone, shining the light from the torch directly into the darkness of the kitchen.

The laptop almost slips from her grasp in shock.

_There’s someone in the kitchen._

“Hello,” says the figure – a woman – like she’d been waiting for Yaz to notice her. She’s standing in the shadows, and Yaz can’t her face, but her voice sounds _familiar._ “Yasmin Khan, isn’t it?”

“Who are you?” Yaz demands, managing to sound braver than she feels. “Why are you here?”

 _How do you know my name?_ she doesn’t ask.

The woman steps forward, still standing in the kitchen, but the warm yellow light of the main room cuts through the shadows, casting enough light across her face for Yaz to recognise her.

It’s the person from the night before – the one the Doctor had been with when she came out of VOR.

The one she’d said was a _government agent._

“You can call me Ruth,” she says. “And I’m here to help.”

“Where is she?” O asks, his voice light, like he’s asking about the weather – and yet it’s _oozing_ with threat, dripping with the blood of the participants who are already dead.

Her heart is pounding.

There’s a sound of movement, a murmur of fear.

“What’s that? Didn’t you _hear me?”_

“We don’t know who you’re on about,” says someone, brave, even as his voice quivers. There’s another pause, and _dammit_ the Doctor would do anything to be able to see what’s going on, just to _see –_

But she can’t move.

She has to stay silent in the dark.

He can’t know she’s in here. He can’t. This is all bluster, just intimidation tactics to make them talk. If they don’t give him anything, he’ll leave. He has to.

Right?

“Beg your pardon?” O says, his voice low, almost intimate. Deadly. She can imagine him, standing right in this man’s face.

“We don’t know anything,” the man says again, voice quivering more, but he powers through. “We don’t know _nothing,_ stuck in here.”

“Oh,” he says, almost apologetic. Like he’s surprised. “Sorry, _sorry._ ” A laugh bubbles up, unhinged, and it chills her to the bone. “ _My mistake._ ”

There are panicked shouts, and then the _THUD_ of a body hitting the floor. Thrashing.

“ _Stop it!”_ shouts Ada, voice cracking. “ _Stop!”_

The Doctor tenses, horror and _fury_ twisting through her veins. She has no idea what he’s doing, but it’s bad, it’s _bad_ and because of _her and –_

There is no way – no way in _hell –_ that she can sit and _just_ _listen to this._

She’s never been able to.

“Then _tell me where she is!”_ O snarls.

He probably knows that.

He’s probably _banking on it._

She decides that she doesn’t care.

In one swift movement, she shoves the cupboard door open and gets out, striding across the room and pushing her way through the sea of white clothes and right up to the front. The first thing she sees is O standing over the writhing form of a man, who seems to be locked in the throes of a full-on seizure.

Shock, anger and nausea twist around her heart.

 _“– you ain’t seen what these things_  
can do,” Julia says,  
eyes bright with fear –

She sees it now.

“ _Stop,_ ” she says, forcing herself to look directly at O rather than the man shaking on the floor. “Leave them _alone,_ and you can have me.”

“ _Doctor,”_ Ada hisses behind her – but she doesn’t turn to look. She just keeps her eyes fixed on the man she can’t remember, watching the manic grin slide off his face as he stares back at her. He’s wearing different clothes now – none of the soft, earthy tones from before. Now, he’s decked in a rich purple waistcoat and a blue shirt with the sleeves rolled up. Like he’s _dressed_ for the occasion.

She decides that whoever he is – whoever he _was_ to her, once upon a time – that she hates him with everything that she is.

He moves towards her, stepping right into her personal space, and it takes all her will power to not flinch back, to hold her ground.

She refuses to let him see her fear.

He hums, a smile tugging at his lips. “I’ve got you anyway.”

The man is still seizing on the floor, and her chest tightens.

“Let him _go,_ ” she snarls.

O’s shoulders sink, and he rolls his eyes like she’s walked into his party and torn down all the decorations.

“Such a _killjoy,_ ” he grumbles, but he taps something on his watch. Immediately, the man goes slack. The relief that floods through her almost makes her feel sick.

Another participant – Julia, she realises – moves forward, going to help the man on the floor. But before she can reach him, O snaps into action, grabbing her by the arm.

“Did I say,” he says, false calm barely hiding the bristling anger underneath, “that you could _move?_ ”

Julia holds up her hands, freezing in place, but unable to stop herself shaking.

“I’m sorry,” she blabbers, “I’m _sorry._ ”

And O just hums, like he’s amused. “Yes. I’m sure you are.”

He seems to consider her for a moment, before releasing his grip. Julia staggers away, out of his reach, a terrified mouse released by the cat.

But he’s just toying with his prey, the Doctor realises with growing horror, as he immediately reaches for his watch and sends the woman dropping into a seizure of her own.

“ _STOP,_ ” she shouts, the word ripping itself from her throat. She doesn’t understand – doesn’t understand _any of this._ Who _is he? Who IS HE?_

But he doesn’t stop. He just grins at her, bouncing on his heels, like an excited child unable to stay still.

“But why would I?” he asks her, frowning. Like he can’t even comprehend what her problem is. “When I do it, Doctor, it gives me a little _buzz_.” Another laugh, bursting from his lips. “I can’t get _enough_ of it.”

She knows what he’s doing. His watch – it must have some kind of link to the Kasaavin on their necks. He’s overloading it – sending surges of electricity directly into these people’s nervous systems.

_A little buzz._

She wants to scream, wants to punch him – _knock him off his feet,_ swipe that smug look off his face. She _hates him,_ and her whole body is practically vibrating with the need to move, to _tackle him_ to the floor and get that _thing_ off his wrist, to _help that woman_.

But she knows what he’ll do.

The device on her neck is cool against her skin, a constant, underlying threat.

He’ll just overload hers. Send her writhing on the floor too.

Or _worse,_ he’ll do it to someone else.

He’ll do it to all of them, and make her stand and watch.

She stares at him, a glacial gaze to his inferno, forcing herself not to move. His smile just stretches further, like he knows _exactly_ what she’s thinking.

“Careful, Doctor,” he says. “I wouldn’t want to set anything off by _accident._ ”

He’s enjoying this.

He’s _revelling_ in this.

And she has to stop him.

“What do you _want?”_ she asks, trying to curb the desperation in her voice. He’s got to want something. Something other than basking in other people’s suffering. Something she can appeal to.

But then he blinks at her, glancing away. Like he hadn’t expected her to ask that. Like he has absolutely no idea what the answer is.

Briefly, oh so briefly, she sees a flicker of herself in there. Of looking into the deep abyss of herself and not being able to understand a single thing that she finds.

Of course, these days, she tends to find nothing.

Nothing at all.

His gaze snaps back to meet hers.

“Say please.”

Her face scrunches, incredulous. “ _What?”_

But O just smiles, eyes alive with triumph. “Say. _Please_. _”_ He waves a hand at Julia still writhing on the floor, moaning. “And I’ll make it stop.”

Her pride immediately balks at the idea – but she swallows it. So what if he’s trying to humiliate her, so _what_ if this is just some sick power play?

It doesn’t matter.

She doesn’t matter.

It only matters that she can do something to stop this – and so she will.

“Please,” she says.

He cocks his head, frowning. He taps his ear. “Can’t hear you, love.”

Something twists in her chest. “ _Please._ ”

“ _Come on,_ Doctor,” he growls. “ _Beg me to stop._ ”

“ ** _Please_** ,” she says, hating the way her voice cracks but desperately hoping it’ll work in her favour because _Julia needs her to get him to stop._

But O just closes his eyes, his free hand coming to cover his mouth. For a moment, he looks like he might cry. 

Then he opens his eyes, before pressing something on his watch.

Julia stills immediately, unconscious.

No-one moves.

No-one dares to.

O stands there for a moment, swaying slightly, looking at the watch on his wrist like he’s not seeing it at all. Then he looks up and steps towards her again, his movements careful this time, even as his face comes right up to hers. Like he thinks he might spook her. Like he knows she would run away, if she could.

But she can’t.

She’s trapped, tangled in wires like the Kasaavin burrowing into her, staring into his eyes and seeing nothing of the person she thought she knew. And yet he can see everything in hers. All the things that have been ripped away from her.

How much of her does he know? 

“When I left you in that room,” he murmurs, “I expected you to _stay there._ ”

“Sorry to disappoint,” she mutters back. A flicker of amusement flashes across his face, and she catches sight of it before he can shove it down. And maybe it’s just because she’s good at stuff like this – her whole _job_ is about talking to people, after all. Seeing the lies that dart behind people’s eyes, the micro-expressions that escape before they can be trapped behind carefully constructed masks.

Or maybe it’s because, deep down, some part of her still _knows him._ The _real_ him.

She doesn’t know. It’s impossible to tell.

“How did you escape?” he asks her, a frown creasing his brow. “How did you get _here?_ ”

A frown of her own wrinkles across her face. She’d – well, she’d tried to _convince_ herself that he hadn’t known she’d been in here, hiding in a cupboard, but if she’s honest she hadn’t really thought it was true. He must have seen the security cameras – seen her and Ada running through the halls, before disappearing into this room. But – but if he’s _asking her –_

“You don’t know,” she breathes, before a twisted smile of her own tugs at her lips. “You’ve got _no idea._ ”

“That’s rich,” he snarls, “coming from _you._ ”

She just smiles at him, sharklike. “Hardly my fault I don’t know what’s going on, when people go about pretending to be someone they’re not.”

“It was necessary,” he says.

“Sure it was.”

“It _was,_ ” he says. “You think I’d have done it otherwise?”

“I wouldn’t know,” she replies. “I don’t know you at all.”

The movement is minute, but she catches it – the way he flinches back slightly, like she’s cut him deep. Maybe she has. She doesn’t really care – if anything, she _revels_ in it, in the way his face has shut down, emotions pulled behind a cool, collected mask that barely hides the raging fury within. She’d trusted him, felt _safe_ with him, and what has he done with that? He’d _known who she was all along,_ and he’d kissed her on that rooftop and said _nothing –_

“As far as I know,” she carries on, words like barbed wire, “I only met _you_ tonight. And actually, I’m not as clueless as you seem to think I am. I know far more about what’s going on here than you realise.”

It’s a bluff, somewhat – other than what she’s found out from Ada and the other participants, she doesn’t know much outside the information _he_ gave her. But she’s hoping it’ll make him nervous, make him slip up. That’s how she gets answers when nothing else works. Her usual fall back, and it’s done her good for a _lot_ of tricky cases. Pretend you know what’s going on, then figure it out from there.

But it doesn’t work this time. No, instead of the nervous expression she’d hoped would flicker across his face, she watches as a smile curls at the corner of his lips.

“Oh Doctor,” he says. “If you think, even for a _moment,_ that you’ve got any idea what’s _really happening –”_

He doesn’t get a chance to finish before there’s a shout from behind her.

“Doctor, _DOWN!_ ”

The Doctor doesn’t even hesitate. She drops to her knees before something flies over her head, smacking O right in the face. He cries out, staggering backwards, just as a screwdriver drops to the ground next to her.

_Ada._

She can’t help but grin, leaping into action before she can think it through. Snatching the tool-turned-weapon off the floor, she grabs O by the knees, knocking him to the ground. Chaos erupts – everyone is moving, shouting, but she ignores them all as she clambers over him, brain racing ahead of her, acting on a plan she barely even realises she’s formulated.

His watch.

She needs to destroy his watch.

But he recovers quicker than she expects, and before she can get within reach of his wrist, his elbow is smashing against her head and she’s knocked off him and to the side, seeing stars. He’s on top of her faster than she can register through the pain in her head – but this isn’t her first fight, not by a longshot, and she learnt a _long_ time ago that fights like this go far too fast. To try and track every swing, every movement, every missed opportunity is just going to wind up with her on the losing end, so she doesn’t try to think – she just runs on instinct, bringing her knee up to jab into his stomach. She hears him grunt as he’s winded, but he doesn’t stop, lunging to grab her arm holding the screwdriver before she can bring it up to whack the blunt end into his face.

“Get out!” she shouts to everyone else in the room. Ada can open the doors – hopefully without the screwdriver. Hell, O might even have left it open. Doesn’t matter – she just needs them to get away, to get _safe._ She hopes someone will think to help the two people who are unconscious.

If not –

She doesn’t finish that thought, writhing beneath O as he grins down at her, all shadow against the bright lights above. She tenses herself, preparing, but his other hand has grabbed her hair, pinning her head to the floor like he _knew_ her next move was going to be _headbutting him –_

“Nice try,” he snarls, so close that his nose is almost touching hers. There’s a cut on his eyebrow where the screwdriver hit him, and the blood drips onto her face. She can smell it, sharp and visceral, and for a moment it’s the only thing she can focus on. “But I _know you,_ John –”

– but she can still move her head enough, and so, running on some kind of primal desperation, she twists herself around and bites down _hard_ on his wrist. He yelps, letting go of her other hand just for a moment in his shock – but a moment is all she needs. She pushes herself up, her shoulder smashing into his with enough force to send him falling off her.

“Doctor!” somebody shouts – Ada, she thinks. She doesn’t respond – can’t, too busy lunging for O, grabbing his arm. She puts her whole weight on it, ignores the pained noise he makes as she brings the screwdriver up, aiming to bring it right down on that damn watch. But then his hand is in her hair, yanking her backwards so hard that her teeth clack together. She just flails, arm lashing out and hoping to hit something painful. Her elbow connects with his shoulder, before he’s pulling her again, shoving her onto her side and then her front in one swift movement, pushing her into the ground.

“You’re _not going to get far –”_ he snarls in her ear, twisting her arms painfully tight behind her back, but before he can finish she’s flinging her head back, hearing the satisfying _crack_ as her skull connects with his nose. She rolls, ignoring the pain, pushing him off her and scrambling up into a crouch before he can try and get her down again. She’s breathing hard. He’s less than a metre from her, hand pressed to his nose, eyes watering as he _grins, manic,_ like he’s _loving this_ –

And something lurches in her chest. Some kind of sense memory catching on her ribcage with a sickening jolt, a déjà vu of the likes she hasn’t experienced since nearly two _years_ ago, when she was getting hit with blocks of memories nearly every day.

She stops.

She –

She _knows this._

And he sees it too – his grin widening, eyes sparkling with pure delight, drinking her in and making no move to come at her again. They’re both frozen, locked in recognition that she can’t quite grasp, can’t quite _remember –_

 _“Yes,_ ” he breathes, reverent. “Do you _see it –”_

He doesn’t get to finish, cut off as Ada comes up behind him and crashes down on top of him, pinning him down.

“Get it!” she yells at her. “His watch, do it!”

The Doctor has to snap herself out of it, shoving that feeling to the back of her mind even as she _aches_ to bring it forward, to pull it apart, to get an _answer_ – but she can’t, she can’t, these people need her to _stop him,_ and so she leaps forward, holding him down too as he bucks and writhes beneath them. They won’t be able to hold him for long –

But she doesn’t need long, she thinks, thoughts wild as she grabs his wrist with one hand and brings the screwdriver down _hard_ onto the device with the other.

The glass screen shatters on impact, cracks spidering across the surface – but the head of the screwdriver keeps going, right through the other side and into his wrist. He gives a sharp cry of pain, desperately trying to pull his hand back. She lets go, taking the bloodied screwdriver with her and scrambling off him, stumbling to her feet. Ada leaps up too, and the Doctor grabs her by the arm, pulling her forwards towards the door that stands ajar. She glances around, feeling dizzy from the double blow to the head. But the rest of the room is empty – everyone else has already gone. No-one left that she needs to worry about.

Good.

They _also_ need to be gone.

“Go, Ada!” she says, releasing her grip around her arm as she pushes her out into the dark corridor. But she doesn’t follow, hesitating for a brief moment to look over her shoulder, back into the room behind her.

O is still on the floor, pushing himself up on one elbow. There’s a trail of blood running down over his eye now, and he holds his injured wrist against his chest. He doesn’t try to get up, but his mouth twitches, teeth showing in something that isn’t quite a smile, isn’t quite a snarl.

She should run, should _go –_ but something keeps her there, leaning on the door frame as her head spins, as her arms ache.

“Go on, then,” he growls, his expression twisting into a grin. His finger twitches on the ground – that four-beat pattern again. _Tap tap tap tap,_ like a nervous tic. “You won’t be able to hide for long.”

She hears Ada call from down the hall, urgent: “Doctor!”

Her eyes are still stuck on his face, the recognition fluttering at the back of her mind like a moth she can’t catch hold of. Dread coils in her gut, unsettled.

But she has to let it go.

_Not now, not now._

She pushes herself off the door frame, before sprinting down the corridor after Ada.

This time, she doesn’t look back to see if he’s followed.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I've been wanting to post this chapter for MONTHS. I wrote this around the time I was posting the first few chapters of part one - so you can imagine I was going absolutely feral, but I couldn't yell at you guys about it because you were still in the parts with the Doctor and the fam being domestic haha. BUT! The day has finally arrived.
> 
> Hope you enjoyed! Let me know what you thought - and as always, you are welcome to yell at me over on tumblr @picnokinesis


	3. Chapter 3

Yaz stares at the woman – _Ruth –_ and tries to decide what to make of her.

It doesn’t take long for her eyes to narrow with suspicion.

“How’d you know I’d be here?” she asks, her tone somewhere between her supervisor when he’s questioning a suspect and her mother questioning Sonya when she comes home at 2am again.

Ruth just looks at her, exuding confidence. “Educated guess.”

Or, more likely, Yaz thinks, she’s here for another reason entirely, and Yaz just happened to stumble across her.

“Listen,” Ruth says, taking a step forward, now fully cast in the light of the room, “I know you don’t know me, and certainly don’t trust me. But you’re smart. You know there’s no way you’re going to be able to find that journalist friend of yours on your own.”

Yaz just about manages to hide her surprise. She knows the Doctor’s missing – how could she know that?

_It doesn’t matter how she knows – she’s right,_ part of her thinks, dread pooling in her stomach. _This isn’t going to work. You’re never going to be able to find her._

But she pushes the thought down. No – she’s _wrong._

Her, Graham, and Ryan can figure it out. _Together._ They’ll find out where she is, and they’ll go and rescue her. Just like what the Doctor would do if one of them were in her place.

“We will,” she says. “We’ve got a plan.”

“What?” Ruth replies, eyebrows raised, clearly unconvinced. “Looking at that laptop to see if that scientist left any helpful clues for you?”

Yaz grips the laptop a little tighter, knowing their plan is _far_ better than that – if they can figure out how to track the GPS on that keycard. That’s a bit of a big if.

Still – she has no idea who this woman is, and she’s _not_ about to let her take over and shove her and the others to the side. “Why would I tell you?”

Ruth just scoffs. “Right. Because it’s not like I have access to resources you wouldn’t be able to _dream_ of that would be able to find her _much_ faster than you ever could.”

Yaz’s face furrows, incredulous. “What, and I’m just supposed to take your word for that?”

“Look,” Ruth says, irritation bleeding into her tone. “If I wasn’t on your side, do you _really think_ I’d have stuck around here whilst you came in and waited for you to notice me?”

“Or you’re here for another reason,” Yaz counters. “And you haven’t got what you came for yet.”

Ruth considers her for a moment. “And what do you think that other reason is?”

She doesn’t know, thoughts rushing through her head like a whirlwind. What does she know about _Ruth?_ She’s some kind of agent – that’s not too much of a step away from the police that maybe she can extrapolate. She just wishes the Doctor had told them _more_ about what had happened when Ruth had found her down in that lab. Their conversation had probably been rife with little details that would be very useful to Yaz right now. But she can make do – she can make sense of it.

It’s what the Doctor would do in this situation – just bluff her way through even though she’s missing half the information she needs, all blustering confidence that she pulls on as easily as a mask.

So – if Yaz were Ruth, presumably investigating VOR, why would she come to this house?

To look for evidence. Crucial information.

Which means she must think there’s something here.

Which means she has to know that O was involved. Known that they were working with him.

But maybe she doesn’t have all the information.

“You want to know why he’s doing what he’s doing,” she says. “You think the answer’s here.”

Ruth hums, looking at Yaz with an expression she can’t quite read. Carefully formulated, not revealing anything. “It’s a good place to start, isn’t it? You figured that out – that’s why _you’re_ here, isn’t it?”

Yaz’s frown deepens, suspicion growing.

“But why do you want to find the Doctor?” she says – before realising immediately that she probably doesn’t really _care_ about the Doctor at all. “You _don’t._ You just want to know what they’re up to.”

“I need to know,” Ruth corrects, her gaze growly steely. Impatient. Yaz gets that – urgency is growing in her chest, fizzing like chemicals thrown into a beaker, ready to blow at any moment. She needs to get back to Ryan and Graham – needs to stop talking to this woman and get on with finding her _friend._

But Ruth is still talking. “You’ve experienced Kasaavin first hand. You know more than anything that those devices cannot be allowed to get out to the public.”

_How do you know that?_ Yaz wants to ask, but the question gets stuck in her throat. There’s a bandage on her neck, after all, there for all to see. It doesn’t take a genius to figure out what had caused it.

“So you’re wrong,” Ruth continues. “I _do_ want to find your friend. Because wherever she is –”

“Is where O is,” Yaz finishes, everything clicking into place.

Ruth frowns. “O? You mean Dhawan?”

“Yeah, he –” she starts to explain – but then decides it doesn’t matter. Dhawan, O – those probably aren’t his real names anyway. Her face furrows with determination, and she tries to pull a sense of authority into her tone. To her relief, she manages it. “Whatever. There isn’t time. If you really want to find her, find the people responsible for all this, then we need to get a move on.”

Ruth scoffs. “This isn’t a ‘we’ thing.”

Yaz gives her a look of disbelief. “Then why are you still here? Why didn’t you take what you needed and leave before I came in?”

“ _Because,”_ Ruth says, like she’s talking to a child, “I wanted to make sure _you_ and your band of friends weren’t about to run head first into something stupid and get in my way.”

Yaz raises her eyebrows, unable to stop herself feeling a bit triumphant. “I thought we didn’t have a hope of finding her?”

Ruth rolls her eyes, clearly exasperated. “You’re as bad as your friend.”

Oh, and that sends a bloom of warmth in her chest, even as it churns with the growing sense of restlessness that twists around her ribcage. She lifts her chin up, a slight smile quirking at her lips. She can see what she needs to do now – how to get what she wants.

“The way I see it,” she says. “We should work together. Like you said, you’ve got the resources –”

“Oh,” Ruth says, “so you believe me now?”

“– and we,” Yaz continues, unperturbed, “know more about O than you, since we’ve spent the last few days with him.”

“He seemed to trick you all perfectly well,” Ruth argues.

“Maybe,” she concedes, still confident. “But I’ve got his laptop, and his notebook, and –”

She hesitates briefly, her mind flashing back to the Doctor, staring at the pages full of circles. To O’s face as she realised, split with a wild grin.

“I think I know why he took her and left us,” she says.

“And you think I care about that?” Ruth shoots back, but there’s something about her tone that doesn’t ring true.

“I think you do. And you’ll need the whole picture if you want to understand what’s going on here,” she says, hopefully appealing to the part of her that is an _investigator._ “I’ve got part of it.”

“And I suppose, in return,” Ruth grumbles. “You want to ‘tag along’? Give me more things to worry about?”

“We’re pretty good in a tight spot,” she says, desperation growing. She _needs_ Ruth to agree. She needed it two minutes ago. “We can help each other. Get to her – to them faster.”

Ruth sighs, glancing away, to the night beyond the window, like she’s regretting every decision that has led her to this point. Yaz watches as her lip curls with displeasure – but then twitches back into a pursed, neutral line.

“Alright then,” she says. “Fine.”

Relief crashes through Yaz – _yes!_ “Great –”

“But you do _exactly_ what I tell you,” Ruth continues, “and _don’t_ get in my way. Any of you. Clear?”

Yaz nods, even though she knows she’s probably going to break those rules multiple times before the night is over. The Doctor’s not here to do it, so someone’s got to pick up the slack. “Clear.”

“Good.” Ruth looks over at her once, expression again unreadable, before walking out towards the front door. “Come on then. And bring that laptop with you.”

Yaz only just manages to resist the urge to roll her eyes.

She follows Ruth out the door, and moments later she’s back in the driver’s seat of the TARDIS. She briefly considers putting the laptop in the back rather than handing it to Ruth to hold – she doesn’t want to lose sight of the only thing that could help them find the Doctor, especially if Ruth ends up screwing them over. But she decides that if they really are going to work together – if they want to find the Doctor as fast as possible – then she needs to let Ruth have it whilst she drives.

They can’t afford to waste any more time.

She starts the engine, and immediately the radio switches back on, a low murmur of conversation in the background. Ruth gets in, holding her hand out, and Yaz passes over the laptop and wire.

“You had his notebook too?”

“By your feet,” she says, glancing over her shoulder before she reverses out of the drive, the TARDIS groaning with concerning familiarity. “He kept all his passwords in the back.”

“Surely it’s not meant to sound like that,” Ruth says as she picks up the notebook and flicks through it.

“It’s fine,” Yaz says as they head back down the road, headlights cutting through the dark. The Doctor isn’t here to defend it, so it all falls to her. “Drives perfectly well.”

Ruth doesn’t reply, but she has a distinct air of _unconvinced_ about her.

“What was your great _plan_ then? Since you were so sure it would help you find her,” she says instead, pulling the laptop lid open and starting it up. She glances at the back page of the notebook, goes still for a moment, before tapping something into the computer.

Yaz hesitates – but only briefly. Right now, she’s just going to have to trust her. “She’s got a keycard – one O messed with, so we could get into the lab. But it has a GPS tracker on it – Graham says he was reactivating the GPS on the card _we’ve_ got yesterday, so there’s gotta be something on his computer that could –” she bites back a frustrated noise – it sounds _stupid_ now she’s imagining how it must sound to Ruth – “Could track the card she has. So we could see where she is.”

“Or where the card is, at least,” Ruth murmurs, before huffing out a dry laugh, patronising. “I doubt you’ll have been able to get it to work.”

Yaz _bristles_ at that. “We had to try _something –”_

“But _I,_ ” Ruth continues, ignoring Yaz completely, “am very good at this sort of thing.”

It’s the sort of arrogance that the Doctor has – only when the Doctor does it, Yaz can’t help but be amused. Ruth just makes her _annoyed._

She opens her mouth to say something, but Ruth interjects before she can.

“Where are the other two? Graham and Ryan, right?”

“Ryan’s hurt,” Yaz says. “We – they’d rigged the labs to explode, and we were –”

“I know,” Ruth cuts off. “But where are they _now?_ ” Dread creeps into her tone. “You didn’t take him to –”

“Hospital?” Yaz finishes. “Yes, of course we did!”

Ruth makes an irritated noise. “ _Of course you did._ Well done. You just made it _painfully obvious_ how clueless you are about this whole thing.”

“ _What?”_ Yaz asks, incredulous – but a whole new fear is spreading across her lungs, like frost fractals over a window. “What are you on about? What _else_ were we supposed to do? He’s _hurt –_ ”

“ _Yes,”_ Ruth snaps. “But you’re supposed to be _dead._ ”

Yaz grips the steering wheel tighter, her breath caught in her throat. She doesn’t like where this is going. “What difference does _that_ make?”

“It means –” Ruth starts, before something catches her attention. In her peripheral, Yaz sees her lean forward, turning up the volume on the radio she hasn’t really been listening to all evening.

_“– after an explosion in the lower levels of the building,”_ says the reporter, all neutral intonation. “ _The cause is currently unconfirmed, but police say they are treating the incident as suspicious, and believe three individuals may have been involved in causing the explosion, but perished in the blast.”_

Yaz’s blood runs cold.

“They’re going to pin it on _you,_ ” Ruth says. “All three of you. Because you’re very helpfully dead. But once they realise that you _aren’t_ dead, they’ll come after you.”

“But –” Yaz starts.

“And if they’re in a hospital,” Ruth continues, “then they’ll be on records. In the _data._ And if there’s one thing Barton knows more than anything else, it’s data. There’s no way they won’t notice.”

Fear twists in Yaz’s chest, ugly and sharp, but she pushes it down. No. She won’t panic. Panic won’t help. She clutches to her training, making herself think rationally. There’s no point wishing she could undo the decisions they’ve made up until now – what’s done is done. What she needs to do now is ask: what do they need? What do they have?

They need to get to Graham and Ryan. They need to go somewhere innocuous. They need to track down the Doctor and find her.

They have the laptop and O’s notes.

And, apparently, they now have a government agent on their side.

“You better not have called the _police_ as well,” Ruth grumbles, breaking her out of her thoughts.

“I haven’t,” Yaz says. “I was going to, but –”

“Well, don’t,” Ruth says simply.

Yaz frowns. “But don’t you _work_ with the police?”

Ruth scoffs. “What gave you that idea?”

“Aren’t you supposed to be some kind of government agent?”

Ruth hums. “I suppose I am.”

“And aren’t the police –”

“Listen,” Ruth cuts her off. “Let me put it simply for you – I don’t trust people as a rule. And I _definitely_ don’t trust an institution that is rife with corruption.”

“The police aren’t all bad,” Yaz protests, even as the words sit heavy in her gut. She knows – the Doctor has ranted about the police enough times before within her earshot, after all, and she knows Ryan has had bad experiences. But she clutches her idealism close – is it so wrong to believe in justice? To believe that she works for something _good?_ “ _I’m_ a police officer.”

“Oh yeah? And how long have you been on the force?”

She can’t help but bristle at that. “Two years.”

Ruth just huffs a laugh – because of course she does. “Right. A probationer, then. Explains why you’re a bit starry eyed.”

“I’m not!” she says, indignant. “And I’m not an idiot neither. I didn’t actually call them, did I?”

“No,” Ruth says with a sigh, and Yaz hears a light tapping sound as she begins to type something on the laptop. “You didn’t. Luckily for you.”

“What are you doing now?” she asks, glancing down at the computer screen briefly. She catches sight of some kind of technical-looking program running, but she can’t figure out what it is.

“Don’t worry about that,” Ruth chides. “Just keep your eyes on the road and make sure we get to your friends in one piece.”

Yaz wants to bite back at that, press further. But she decides against it – Ruth seems to know what she’s doing, which means if she keeps working with them, they might actually have a good chance of finding the Doctor. And Yaz is under no illusions that if Ruth decides she’s too annoying, she’ll cut her out of this without even hesitating.

And so, she keeps her gaze fixed on the road, mouth firmly shut, lips pursed with worry. She thinks of Ryan and Graham, stuck waiting in a place that will only make them unearth the worst kind of memories. And she thinks of the Doctor, trapped, maybe even _hurt,_ held captive by a man she can’t remember.

She just hopes she can get to them all in time.

The Doctor is running.

Her head is spinning, the result of too many knocks in the space of less than half an hour. It casts the corridors around her into something slightly to the left of coherent, but she forces herself to focus through it, following Ada deeper into the maze of whatever this place is. She can’t see the other participants. They must have gotten away – hopefully some of them might even get out of this place. Call for help.

But she knows it won’t be as simple as finding an exit – those soldiers are probably all over the place, and the participants aren’t in much position to fight back. She just hopes none of them have devices like the one she’d just destroyed on O’s wrist. If they do –

Her mind cuts to the images of that man and that woman writhing on the floor, locked in seizures whilst O just _grinned_ at her. She swallows down the nausea that threatens to rise up her throat, and for what must be the billionth time since she woke up in this place, her mind echoes that constant refrain:

_Who is he?_

**_Who is he?_ **

Part of her wishes she could deny the whole thing – pretend that he’s doesn’t really know her, that he’s just lying. Playing some twisted game with her, preying on the fact she wouldn’t know any better. But she can’t. There’s _something_ about him that she knows. During that fight, there’d been that moment of recognition that she hadn’t been able to shake. Like catching sight of a beacon in the darkness, or the flicker of headlights in a rearview mirror. What had triggered it? The look in his eyes? Or had it been the fight itself? The rush of adrenaline in her veins as she fought on instinct but he’d countered her moves like he’d been _expecting them,_ like it’s a dance they’ve both done before. Or perhaps it had been the way the blood had begun pouring down his face, the way it had made him _grin –_

The more she thinks about it, the more it disturbs her.

She _doesn’t know him._

And yet, something about that fight had felt –

Something twists in her chest, choking her lungs as she realises where that thought is leading.

It had felt _right._

“ _Doctor!”_ hisses Ada.

The Doctor stumbles, blinking. She’d barely been looking where she was going (– stupid, _stupid,_ she needs to _pay attention,_ needs to _notice things –)_ and hadn’t even noticed that Ada had stopped, standing in a doorway.

“In here!” she says, before ducking into the room.

The Doctor doesn’t hesitate, immediately following her through the doorway. Beyond it, she finds a large storage room, filled with shelves of boxes and racks of weapons. The Doctor swallows, briefly afraid that Ada is going to suggest trying to _use them_ – but she doesn’t, instead just moving past the shelves and disappearing around the furthest corner. She follows, peering around, only for Ada to yank her into the shadows, pulling her out of sight.

“Hey!” the Doctor protests, immediately wrenching her wrist out of Ada’s grip. The sudden movement only accentuates the ache in her arms from where O had pulled them behind her back. “Can you _not?_ I’m not – not very _good_ with people touching me.”

“Sorry,” Ada says, taking a step back, out of the Doctor’s space. “Are you alright?”

The Doctor waves a hand. “‘s fine, not a big deal.”

“ _No,_ I mean –” Ada says, face crumpled with concern and confusion. She breaks off, like she’s not quite sure what to ask – where to start.

The Doctor knows that feeling.

“That man,” she says. “Who _is he?_ ”

She opens her mouth to speak, but nothing comes out – she has no idea what to say. She just shakes her head instead, quickly closing her eyes against the way her headache intensifies in response.

“Are you hurt?” Ada asks, voice tight with fear.

_Always, Ada,_ she wants to say, but she bites it back. “‘m fine. Just –” she tries to laugh – “shouldn’t have headbutted him, probably.”

She opens her eyes, and finds no trace of a smile on Ada’s face – just concern and fear mixed with raw determination, right in the middle of a hurricane of questions that she has no answers for.

“I don’t know who he is,” she says, hoping Ada won’t push any deeper. “I thought I did. But it was just an act, and he used it to lure me into the lab so he could get those soldiers to grab me. I don’t know the real him.”

But Ada shakes her head, and the Doctor’s heart sinks. Because Ada is smart, a thinker, and she can see all the places where it doesn’t all add up.

It’s the sort of thing the Doctor normally _loves_ about other people. Kindred spirits – like her fam, Yaz especially. It’s that desperate need to get the full picture, to ask _questions,_ that makes her a good investigative journalist.

But oh, she never likes it when it’s directed at her, does she?

“It’s not just that, though,” Ada insists, continuing. “He _really knows_ you – but you don’t know him at all?” She pauses, realisation flickering across her features. “Or…don’t _remember_ him?”

The Doctor shakes her head, adamant, even as the pounding pain makes her regret it. _Ugh,_ she’d gotta stop doing that. “It doesn’t matter – we’ve got to get going, find a computer and –”

“Why did he call you _John?”_

The Doctor’s words emergency stop, something twisting in her chest. She thinks, for reasons that escape her, that it might be something akin to terror.

“What?” she chokes out.

“He called you John, when you were fighting,” Ada presses. Her expression is resolute, demanding answers. Yet somehow, there’s still a softness there. Like she can see the panic in her eyes. “Why did he do that?”

On second thoughts, she probably can. It’s not as if the Doctor is doing anything to hide it.

“I don’t know,” she says. She’d not even registered that he’d said it at the time, but now she casts her mind back, she can pick out the moment when it slipped out of his mouth – like he’d said it without thinking. She forces herself to breathe normally. “That’s not my name.”

Ada’s frown deepens. “And ‘the Doctor’ is?”

The question isn’t unkind, but it is only one step away from an accusation, and it sends fear darting between her ribcage like a bird flitting between branches.

_If you don’t know who he is,_ it feels like she’s asking, _then tell me who **you** are._

Had she asked the question yesterday, the Doctor would have had a sure answer for her, even with her missing memories. But now…

She pushes the thought aside.

“Like I told those others back there,” she says, her voice as steady as she can make it. “It’s the name I _chose._ Which means it’s the only name that matters.”

“But –”

The Doctor makes a frustrated noise – they need to get _moving,_ and that won’t happen unless she throws Ada a bone _–_ and tugs up the hair that falls across her forehead, revealing the jagged scar that darts across her left temple. “ _Fine._ You’re right. I have some memory issues. But can we _leave it?_ Because there are _much bigger problems here_ than a lunatic I’m _supposed to know_ calling me some name that isn’t mine.”

Ada takes a step back, shock flickering across her face. She opens her mouth to speak, but before she can say anything, a voice comes from behind.

“You’re right – you _do_ have bigger problems.”

The Doctor spins on her heels, still gripping the bloodied screwdriver tight with one hand, heart beating like a wild thing in her chest. The man standing behind her immediately steps back, holding his hands up placatingly. The Doctor recognises him immediately and forces herself to relax.

“Charlie Babbage,” she says, forcing herself to lower the tool in her hands.

What had she even planned to do with it anyway?

It’s a _tool,_ she reminds herself. Not a weapon.

She doesn’t do weapons.

“Doctor,” Babbage replies, still looking unconvinced about the name – or perhaps just unsettled in general. “You’ve got blood on your face.”

She frowns, before reaching a hand up to wipe it away.

“It’s not mine,” she says, remembering how O’s wound had dripped onto her.

“Yes, I’m…aware,” Babbage says, solidly in the _unsettled_ camp.

“How did you find us?” Ada asks, stepping closer so she’s standing next to the Doctor.

“Well, you weren’t exactly being _quiet,_ ” he counters. “What happened to that man?”

“We dealt with him,” the Doctor replies. “Destroyed that watch. He won’t be able to hurt you again now.”

But Babbage shakes his head, clearly not reassured. “There are others. And the soldiers – some of them have them too. And I still wouldn’t fancy our chances against the ones who don’t.”

“Where are the others?” the Doctor asks. “Did you find anywhere to hide?”

At that, irritation sharpens his expression. “A group of us found somewhere safe. But the chances of it _staying_ safe aren’t exactly _high._ ”

And the Doctor can’t help but bristle at the words, because she _knows_ what he’s getting at. If she’d not showed up – if she’d not made them all get _out,_ they’d still be in that room. And they’d all been so nervous of escaping before. 

But –

“That room you were in wasn’t safe either,” she says, voice steely. “And you know it.”

“You’re right,” he says. “But if _you_ hadn’t been there, two people wouldn’t have had _seizures,_ would they?”

“ _Hey,”_ hisses Ada, stepping forward as the Doctor tries to hide the way she flinches back at Babbage’s remark. “I’m the one who brought her there. And we couldn’t have known that he’d come and look for her. That he’d…use those things like that.”

“Didn’t you?” Babbage asks, looking right at the Doctor with a cool gaze. “It seemed like you knew each other quite well, to me.”

Ada opens her mouth – whether to defend her or agree with him, the Doctor doesn’t know. But she’s speaking before Ada gets the chance.

“I know. And I’m sorry,” she says, staring right back at him – because he’s more right than he knows. If she’d not been there, O wouldn’t have come in like that. “But right now, we’ve got a chance to escape, to get _all_ of us out, and stop Barton before this thing gets any bigger.”

“Right,” Ada says. “By finding a computer so we can take these things off.”

The Doctor scrunches her face. “That was a good plan when most of us were staying in the same place and we were trying to bring a computer _back_ them. But now –”

“We’re scattered,” finishes Babbage. “And those of us who stuck together might not be able to stay in the same place for long. Of course, there’s two unconscious people to tend to as well. And if they _find us,_ they’re going to make us pay for it.”

The Doctor nods, thoughts swirling through her headache. Those people need to get out, get somewhere safe – but they can’t _do_ that when there are so many threats and they’re incapacitated and –

And when they don’t have enough information.

She also needs information. Needs to understand the exact scale of Barton’s scheme, needs to figure out a way to _stop it –_ specifically in a way that stops them being able to use the Kasaavin to hurt the participants any further. And –

And she needs to figure out who the _hell_ O is, and then lock him in a cupboard.

“Change of plan,” she says, glancing between them briefly, fist tightening around the screwdriver in her hand. “You both go back and keep the others safe. Try and find a way out – but don’t get caught. Stick to the shadows, the periphery.”

“Shouldn’t we be trying to _contact the authorities?_ ” Babbage says. “There’s got to be a phone in this place –”

The Doctor shakes her head. “No. The authorities won’t be any help. If you can get _out_ of this place, then _maybe_ – but if you try and call them from in here, Barton and those soldiers are going to know exactly what you’re doing straight away. Communications technology is their _thing._ They’ll get you, and they’ll get the others, and then you’ll be back to square one, or worse.”

Babbage looks unhappy – but he doesn’t disagree with her, clearly seeing the sense in what she’s saying.

“So, getting out is a priority, then,” he says. “A few of us look for options, then we can move the people who can’t get out themselves.”

The Doctor nods, sombre. Those people are going to need medical care – they _all_ are, probably, in one form or another.

It’s times like this she wishes she was _actually_ a doctor, and didn’t just take the word for her name.

“But you said _us,_ ” Ada protests, her brow furrowed. “What about _you_ , Doctor?”

“I’m going to find out as much as I can about the Kasaavin,” she says. “And figure out a way to stop it. Before the end of tonight.”

“Then I should come with you,” she states, chin up. “I know _computers._ I can help you. And I’m the one who knows how to open the doors.”

“Precisely,” says the Doctor, pushing the screwdriver into her chest. “Which is why you need to help Charlie and the others. You can get them out. Get them safe.”

_Please,_ she pleads silently, hoping Ada can see the desperation in her eyes. _I need you to get them safe._

The memories of the Cybermen are bubbling close to the surface, the cool metal of Kasaavin against her neck far too similar to what she’d seen, _felt,_ all those years ago. Kasaavin isn’t on the level of what they were doing in that cult, but it’s only a few steps down the same path. The same slippery slope that’s soaked with blood.

She’s lost too many to that.

She won’t lose any more, even if she barely knows them.

_No one_ deserves to be lost to something like this.

“But you’re going to be on your _own,_ ” Ada says. “Do you even know where to go?”

“I’ll figure it out,” she says. “And I’ll be fine. I’ve done this sort of thing on my own before plenty of times before – well, not _exactly_ this sort of thing, but close enough. Sneaking around, getting information, listening in to things I shouldn’t, pushing buttons I shouldn’t. It’s what I _do._ ”

“But –”

“ _No,_ ” the Doctor says, firm. “Ada, please. It’s too dangerous.”

Ada doesn’t say anything, instead fixing her with a fierce gaze, eyes burning with a fire that rivalled the one in O’s.

But Babbage puts his hand on Ada’s shoulder, directing her attention to him. “Ada. Come on.”

“They need you more than me,” the Doctor adds, hoping it’ll be enough.

For a moment, Ada doesn’t do anything. Then, her shoulders slump, and she sighs.

“Fine,” she murmurs. Her hand wraps around the screwdriver, before glancing back at the Doctor once more.

“Thank you,” the Doctor says giving her a curt nod, before urgency flickers in her chest again, awakening. “Go on, then. No time to hang around.”

Babbage nods as well, before taking his hand off Ada’s shoulder and moving towards the end of the shelving they’d ducked behind. He checks the room is clear, before moving out, Ada following just behind. The Doctor pauses briefly, staying where she is and turning to consider the shelving beside her. There are various bits of equipment in here, but what catches her attention in particular is a box of tangled wires. _Hm._ That’ll probably come in handy if she _does_ find a computer and wants to get the Kasaavin off. She can’t take the whole box now, obviously…but she doesn’t know if she’s going to be able to find her way back here later.

She glances around the shelves, seeing that Babbage and Ada are already gone. Good – she doesn’t need to follow them, and doesn’t want either of them following her. She ducks back behind the shelving, before crouching down and beginning to rifle through the box, ignoring the way her headache pounds more pointedly as she looks down. She examines the heads of the wires in turn, looking for something that matches what she and O had used the previous night to get that one off Yaz –

Had that really been only last night?

It feels like forever ago.

And yet she can still remember the way O had comforted her – how he’d known exactly what she’d needed and how he’d given it to her without even a word. The way he’d held out his hand to her and let her choose to take it. The way the skin-on-skin contact hadn’t felt like it was burning her.

And then it switches again – O’s face against hers as that soldier held her still, eyes burning. The sound of his _laugh,_ unhinged as it ricocheted off the walls. The looks on the faces of Ryan, Graham and Yaz as he set that bomb, as he’d _left them to die –_

The confusion and fear and _grief_ churn in her chest, spiked with the sharp taste of betrayal. 

There’s just so much of it that doesn’t make sense. She feels like she’s desperately scrabbling for pieces to the puzzle, but she’s only got a handful, with no picture on the box to guide her, and she hadn’t even realised the puzzle had been _there_ until tonight. And now three of the only four people she feels like she’s really _known_ since she woke up from that train crash are _dead, **gone** , _all because of _her –_

A breath hitches in her throat, and she screws her eyes shut, catching herself. _No_. She can’t afford to let herself spiral into despair. Not right now. 

Too much to do.

Too many people depending on her.

She’s failed too many already.

Forcing her eyes open again, she continues to dig through the box, until her fingers find a couple of wires that looks promising. She pulls them out, examining each in turn, before coiling them both and clutching them in one hand. Then she stands, takes in a breath, before venturing out past the shelving and looking out. Just as before, the room is empty.

She moves down towards the door, hovering at the entrance and looking both ways down the corridor. The coast is clear. She has no idea which way Ada and Babbage have gone, but at a guess, she imagines it’s the direction she and Ada had been running in before – down the corridor to her right.

She glances left. The way they’d come from. Where O had been – where Ada had found her, lying dead to the world in that room.

She considers her options. Thinking.

If she wants to get to the centre of this, then she needs to be wherever O, Barton and those soldiers are working. She needs to find their base of operations in this place.

Which means that, even as much as it sounds like a _bad idea…_

She needs to go back.

Back in the direction she’s just run from.

Back where O is.

She steels herself for a moment, before pushing away from the doorframe and heading down the corridor to the left, clutching the cables in her hand with a white-knuckled grip and not looking behind her.

She might be scared out of her wits – but she has no intention of turning back.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Don't really have much to say today, but I hope you're all having a good week! Thank you everyone for reading! I love y'all <3


	4. Chapter 4

**_3 rd October, 2018_ **

**_7:14 PM_ **

The weather is, as it often is in October, abysmal. Of course, Graham thinks, that might give someone the idea that the weather in England is anything less than abysmal at other times of the year – an idea that it would do no good to foster, he reckons. Nothing good ever comes of banking on good weather in this country. Sure, you can hope – hell, you could even make a decent bet on it. But the _moment_ you decide to leave the house without an umbrella is the moment the powers of the universe decide that it’s going to start hammering it down.

He looks out the window of the kitchen as he fills the kettle, lips pursed as he watches the wind tug fiercely at the trees. The rain runs tracks down the glass, glinting with flecks of gold as they catch the light from the lampposts.

He hopes she’s got an umbrella.

‘She’ being the person who adamantly refers to herself as _the Doctor_ for reasons that escape him, who’s been sleeping on their couch for the last week or so after that train crash. Her memories seem to have been coming back in bits, and from what he can tell that had been a good sign. He’d reckoned she’d probably have everything back in a month or so, if it kept on going like this. Grace, though – she hadn’t seemed so sure, when he’d mentioned it a few days ago. In fact, she’d been pretty sure there would be certain things she’d _never_ get back. Brains are tricky things, after all, she’d told him. Don’t always knit themselves together quite right.

And there are other concerns too, that come alongside serious head injuries. Personality changes, mood swings. Seizures. Something called _fugue state,_ which Grace had told him was something to do with feeling this sudden urge to _leave._ To disappear, to just go, without any destination in mind.

If he’s honest, a couple of days ago he’d have said that he doubted any of those things would happen. And not because he didn’t trust Grace – far from it. It’s just –

Well, it had seemed like she was doing ok. The Doc, that is.

(If he’s going to use that name, then he’s going to come up with a nickname for it, and that’s that.)

And sure, she’d been a bit restless maybe – but Graham had figured that was understandable, what with having lost her memories and staying with people she didn’t actually know at all. They’d been trying to find out about her family, figure out who she’d had to look out for her before all this. But…

Well.

Looks like she didn’t really have anyone.

He’s still looking out the window. If anything, the weather has managed to get _worse._

If she doesn’t have anyone other than them…

Then where has she been for the last three days?

She’d left in the afternoon earlier that week, suddenly remembering that she had a campervan or something parked somewhere. Something with all her stuff in, which would certainly go a long way to figuring out the things that still didn’t make sense about her. She’d insisted on going alone, something Grace hadn’t been totally happy about. But what were they to do? She’s an _adult,_ after all, head injury or no, and there wasn’t much they could have done other than follow her against her will. And that had seemed a bit too drastic at the time. She’d been all smiles and confidence – excited, almost.

He wishes they’d done it now.

The kettle grumbles at him, and he sighs, before flicking it off and going to grab a mug. Distantly, he can make out Grace on the phone upstairs. He glances at his watch. Ah, yes. That’ll be Yaz – just off shift, probably. They’ve been calling a lot, since they told local police about the Doctor having gone off without a trace. Not much they can do, other than look out for her. Yaz probably hasn’t seen anything – he’s pretty sure Grace would have called him up if she had. But Yaz keeps on looking, bless her.

He expects they might be looking for a long while.

If the Doc really didn’t have anyone – if she’d been living out of a _van_ before they found her…

She probably isn’t too good with stability.

She’s probably not even in the city any longer.

He pours the water onto his tea bag, getting some milk out and splashing a little in, until the drink is just the colour he likes. He takes a sip, leaning back against the counter, sombre.

He just hopes she’s ok.

No one should be alone and out in the dark. Especially not in weather like this.

He wants to see her again. Just to know she’s alright. That they can be her family, if she wants them to be. Hell, she probably saved both their lives that night, and many more besides. All whilst she didn’t even know her name. It’s the least they can do, he reckons – and, even if she hadn’t done all of that, it would be the _right_ thing. The proper thing. But he gets the feeling that –

_Bang bang bang!_

He flinches, almost spilling his tea.

It takes him a moment to register that someone is knocking on the door.

_Bang bang bang!_

“Alright, alright!” he calls, putting his tea down on the side. “I’m coming!”

Whoever it is, they don’t pay him any attention, still knocking with a kind of desperation he didn’t even know could be _conveyed_ through a knock. But they’re doing it. Whoever it is have had better have a _damn_ good reason, he thinks as he fumbles with the catch to open the door, or he’ll –

He pulls the door open, and immediately freezes with shock.

“Hiya, Graham,” says the Doctor, like it’s not been three days since they last saw her, like she doesn’t look like a drowned rat, like she’s not –

Like she’s not _bleeding._

“Bleedin’ hell, Doc,” he says, grabbing her arm without thinking and yanking her inside. She flinches, and he feels a sharp flash of guilt – he should have _remembered_ what happened when Grace had taken her by the arm on the train. He lets go quickly, focusing on getting the door shut instead.

At least she’s inside.

“Hi,” she says again, a little breathless, almost panicky. “Sorry to barge in, I just –”

“What _happened_ to you?” Graham asks, the question stampeding off his tongue. His gaze flicks over her face, running damage assessment. Split lip, bloody nose, and a right shiner around her left eye socket. And, of course, that still-healing gash on her temple from the crash. Did she go to someone – someone who _hurt her?_ “I thought you went to look for your _van?”_

“I _did,_ ” she says, making an attempt to wipe away her nosebleed. He catches the way her hand is shaking slightly, how there are grazes on her knuckles. “Only I didn’t find it. Don’t remember where I parked.”

“Doc,” he breathes. “Did you get into a _fight?”_

“Maybe,” she says, immediately hiding her hand. “Or maybe not. Depends on your definition of a fight. I definitely didn’t leave here _intending_ to get into a fight, if that’s what you’re worried about –”

“Nevermind all that,” he says, almost wishing he hadn’t asked. More important things to attend to than the how’s and why’s, he thinks, as he resists the urge to take her arm and pull her into the living room. “Take off your boots, then go sit on the sofa. We’ll get you cleaned up, alright?”

“You don’t need to,” she says, not moving from her position in the hallway. “I just needed somewhere to – well, like I said, couldn’t find my van so I just wondered if I could use your sofa again for tonight –”

Graham stares at her, blinking, before he forces his expression to go as serious as he can make it.

“Doc,” he says. “If you think, for a _second,_ that we would let you stay here when you’re looking like that and _do nothing about it –”_

She freezes, a panicked look in her eyes. Like something about his tone has scared her.

He hates to imagine what she might be thinking.

And so, he forces himself to just sigh, his shoulders dropping. “Well. You’d be wrong. That’s all.”

The Doctor is still tense next to him, but the panic seems to go down a notch. 

“Oh,” is all she says.

How is this a surprise to her? What past has she remembered that makes her think –?

But then, it doesn’t matter. None of it does.

It just matters that whatever that past is, he’s not about to let it be repeated right now.

“Neither me or Grace,” he says to her, voice as gentle as he can make it, “are _ever_ going to turn you away if you’re hurt. If you need help. I can promise you that.”

And she just stares at him, deer in the headlights.

“Right,” she says after a long moment.

“Right,” he repeats, hoping he sounds confident enough to convince her. “Come on, then. Sit yourself down.”

He heads into the living room, passing through to go straight into the kitchen. To his relief, he hears her follow, before there’s the tell-tale creak of the sofa as she sits down. A little of the tension leaks from his muscles. One step at a time – and this is a step in the right direction. But he has the feeling that a wrong move is going to send her scampering back out into the night, something he _definitely_ does not want her doing in her current state.

And so, he does the only thing he knows for sure that she’ll like, and uses the last of the hot water from the kettle to make her a cup of tea. He mournfully spoons in multiple heaps of sugar, before a brainwave hits him and he grabs some biscuits out of the cupboard too. Ah – custard creams. She’d liked those, hadn’t she?

He grabs the whole packet, taking them out into the living room along with her tea. She glances up as he returns, tracking him as he puts the mug down on the coffee table right along with the biscuits.

“Help yourself to those,” he tells her, figuring that there’s a good chance she won’t leave until she’s drunk the tea, at least. “I’m just gonna grab the first aid kit from upstairs.”

She doesn’t reply – or if she does, she’s too quiet for his ears to pick it up. He moves up the stairs as quick as he’s able, half-wishing for the times when he was young and fit enough to take them two at a time.

Predictably, he bumps into Grace the moment he hits the upstairs landing.

“Is she –?” she asks, phone still in her hand.

“Banged up,” he says, not pausing in his beeline to the bathroom. “But nothing too bad, I reckon. First aid kit will fix it up.”

He’ll probably leave that to her – she’s best with that, after all. And she’d been good with the Doc those first few days, when she was still half out of her head and point-blank refusing to even step _foot_ in the direction of a hospital. She probably still won’t – go to A&E, he means, as he reaches up to the cupboard above the bathroom sink and pulls out the first aid kit that they keep diligently stocked. He’s just glad she’s come to them. Who _knows_ what would have happened if she hadn’t.

“Yaz, I’m going to have to call you back, love,” Grace says, before hanging up a moment later. Her face is all furrowed with concern, and it makes Graham’s heart clench to see it. “I didn’t come down earlier – didn’t want to overwhelm her.”

“Probably a good thing,” he murmurs, closing the cupboard door and walking back towards her, handing over the first aid kit. She takes it without a word, following him as he goes to get a towel out of the airing cupboard. “She said she just wanted to sleep on the sofa for a night – like she didn’t expect us to want to fix her up.”

Grace’s face crumples even further, thoughts clearly running along the same lines his had only a few minutes earlier. Or maybe thinking about fugue states, and all that that entails.

“Yeah,” he says as he grabs a towel, before heading back down the stairs, shaking his head. “I know.”

He can’t help but expect her to have disappeared again by the time he re-enters the living room, but she’s still there, sat on the sofa, hands wrapped around the tea she doesn’t seem to be drinking. He steps back, letting Grace through so she can approach the sofa ahead of him. The Doctor glances up the moment she walks in, a new flicker of emotions flashing across her face. He didn’t think you could mix _panic_ and _relief_ into one expression, but the Doctor seems to manage it.

“Grace,” is all she says. Grace, in turn, comes to a halt at the end of the sofa and gives her a look of motherly exasperation that he hasn’t seen her direct at _anyone_ other than Aaron and Ryan.

Almost certainly, it’s to cover the pure worry that she’s _really_ feeling.

Graham knows Grace – and knows that if _he’s_ feeling like this, there’s no way Grace isn’t feeling it too.

“Doctor,” she says. “What have you gone and done to yourself?”

“It’s _fine,_ ” the Doctor insists. “Honest. I just need a nap. Graham’s just making a fuss, I’ve had plenty worse.” Her brow furrows. “I think.”

Grace sighs, before taking a seat on the sofa, leaving the Doctor enough space to be comfortable. She clicks open the first aid kit, glancing at the Doctor once more, quickly assessing, before riffling through the contents. “You’ve definitely had worse, because I patched it up for you last week, love.”

The Doctor seems to relax a little at that. “ _There._ See? Exactly. It’s all fine –”

“But just because it’s not worse,” Grace says, pulling out an anti-sceptic wipe, and holding it out to the Doctor, “doesn’t mean it doesn’t need sorting out.”

The Doctor’s face crinkles for a moment, before she seems to decide that expression is too uncomfortable to keep up for long with her injuries. She puts her tea down, then takes the wipe and begins to use it on her face.

“I know,” she says quietly, wincing slightly as she brushes over a cut. “I do _know_ that. I just…”

She trails off. Graham places the towel on the table, and then goes over to the dining table, picking up a chair and moving it around so he can sit closer to them.

“Didn’t want to be a bother,” the Doctor mutters eventually, as Graham sits down. “Is all.”

“You’re no bother, cockle,” he tells her. Her gaze flicks to glance at him for a moment, before shifting back down. She starts using the wipe on her knuckles, and Graham marvels at Grace’s attention to detail – letting the Doc clean her own injuries is going miles better than if they’d tried to clean them for her, he’s sure of it.

“What caused all this, then?” Grace asks, her voice free of judgement. “Where did you go off to?”

 _Why didn’t you come back?_ is the unspoken question.

“I wasn’t lyin’,” the Doctor says, running the wipe over her knuckles one last time before screwing the wipe into a ball and depositing it on the table. Graham watches it unravel itself slowly once she lets it go, fabric splodged with red. “I _did_ go to look for my van.”

“And?” Grace pushes, picking up the towel off the table and giving it to her.

“And I couldn’t find it,” she mutters, taking the offering and starting to dry her hair. “But I just. I’ve been getting this feeling. That I should just go.”

“Why?” Grace asks. “I said you could stay as long –”

“I _know,_ ” the Doctor snaps, louder than she’s spoken since she walked through the door, and Graham can’t help but jolt a little in surprise. Grace, of course, manages to stay perfectly still, unfazed. The Doctor winces, speaking quieter again. “I know. But…I couldn’t shake it. Guess I thought it’d be better to go before you got sick of me and threw me out.”

“Doc,” Graham says, quietly horrified. “We wouldn’t do that. Not if you had nowhere to go.”

“But I can’t stay here forever, can I?” she mutters, bitter. “That’s not how it works. Even if you want it to.”

For a moment, no-one says anything.

“Did you remember something?” Grace asks softly, voicing the same thing Graham’s been wondering all evening.

The Doctor hums, humourless. “Few things.” She scrunches up her face. “Actually, remembered something at a pretty inconvenient time.”

“Oh yeah?” Grace says, pressing oh so gently.

“Yeah,” the Doctor says, nose crinkling. She wipes it again with her hand, glancing down at the smear of red that’s been left across her skin. “I mean – I was…” She hesitates, before seeming to decide to hell with it, her words coming out in a rush. “I was at a bar and this guy was being racist to the barman so I decked him.”

Graham blinks, trying to imagine this small, blonde woman punching someone. “You _what?_ ”

“Only he had some friends with him,” she mutters. “And then my brain decided it was a good time for me to remember a chunk of stuff from while I was at uni, which made the whole thing extremely disorientating.”

“ _Doc,_ ” Graham can’t help but say.

“What?” she protests. “It’s not like I make a schedule for these things!”

Graham just sighs, whilst Grace passes her an icepack.

“Put this round your eye for me. How are you feeling now?” she asks. “Still disorientated?” 

“I’m ok,” she mumbles, taking the icepack and doing as she’s told. “Found my way here, didn’t I?”

“Alright,” Grace says. “I’m guessing you got away from the fight before the police got there, then.”

“Yeah,” she says, hand not holding the icepack tapping on her leg. “Figured I’d bitten off more than I could chew, so I scarpered once I’d got away from them. Don’t know if the police actually got called though. Whatever.” She gives half a shrug. “Worth it, though. The guy deserved it.”

“Yaz was there,” Grace tells her. “After you left.”

The Doctor stills.

“Oh,” she says with strained nonchalance. “Was she?”

“Hang on a minute though,” Graham says, switching the direction of conversation – partly for the Doctor’s sake, although he’s sure she won’t thank him for it. “That doesn’t explain where you’ve been the last few days. If you didn’t find your van, where’ve you been sleeping?”

The Doctor doesn’t look at either of them. “Here and there.”

And Graham knows what _that_ means. After all, she’d left the house with nothing but the clothes on her back and whatever had been in her pockets. How much money had she even had on her? Cards? Did she even remember her pin numbers?

And then another concerning thought strikes him. “Have you been eating alright?”

The answer to that one turns out to be _no,_ which results in the next half hour or so being spent rustling up a proper hot meal. Graham finds he doesn’t begrudge it at all, even as the time for Call the Midwife grows threateningly closer. They end up watching it on catch-up, plates on trays on their laps, him and Grace on the sofa and the Doctor on one of the armchairs. For one of the first times since he’s met her, she’s not wearing that leather jacket of hers – no, that’s drying off on the back of one of the dining table chairs. Instead, she’s just in her t-shirt, wrapped up in a blanket that Grace had brought down from upstairs. She eats up heartily, much to his relief. He half expects that she’s been living off a packet of biscuits and pasties from Gregg’s, although maybe that’s not giving her enough credit. Somehow, she’s managed to survive up until now. She must have some street-wise-ness about her.

And she _had_ managed to take down a black-market organ trader the first night he met her, which is more than _he_ can claim.

She ends up falling asleep in front of the tv. Grace collects her tray to take into the kitchen, and somehow manages not to wake her in the process. Graham picks up their own dirty dishes and follows behind her, carefully putting them on the side. He starts passing things over to her as she opens the dishwasher, puzzling over the last hour or so.

“Do you think it’s that fugue thing, then?” he asks, trying to keep his voice down.

“I’m not sure,” Grace says, her voice low. He can hear the worry in her tone.

“But if it is,” he continues. “You reckon she’ll be alright now? Got it out of her system an’ all that?”

He catches sight of her face as she turns to take a plate from him, and her brow is pinched. “That’s not really how it works, I’m afraid.”

Graham hums, considering the even worse possibility. “‘Course, it could just be that she’s like this anyway. If she really thought we were gonna kick her out eventually, and don’t have no one else to help her neither.”

Grace nods, glancing back at meeting his eyes. “I thought that too.”

They don’t say much after that, pondering together in shared silence. Once the dishwasher is full, they return to the living room, with Grace pausing briefly over the Doctor whilst Graham sits on the sofa and begins sorting out the telly.

“I’ll keep an eye on her,” he tells her. “Go on. You must be shattered after work.”

Grace hums, and for a moment he thinks she won’t. She’s still looking at the Doctor, curled up in the chair and oblivious of everything around her.

“I just wonder where her family is,” she says quietly. Almost mournfully.

Graham recognises that tone, that sorrowful look in her eyes. Family means so much to Grace. She always speaks so fondly of when Aaron was a kid, of when she’d helped out when Ryan was still a youngster. She’d been so proud – of Aaron, of Ryan’s mum, and Ryan himself more than anything. She says how lucky she’s been, to have a family. Graham’s never been so fortunate, but that reflected glow he gets to bask in whenever he sees her and Ryan together, sees that beautifully uncomplicated love they have for one another…well, he lives for it, in some ways.

And whilst he hadn’t been in her life when it happened, he knows how much Aaron going off had hurt her. So many times, she’s poured her heart out to him about it, wondering if she did something wrong, if she’d ever made her son feel like he couldn’t come to her when he was hurting. Because that’s what’s wrong with that man – he’s hurting. Still struggling with the loss of his wife, and can’t bear to face it. Not even for Ryan’s sake.

Graham wants to hate him for it – heaven knows Ryan has suffered so much because of it. He needed his dad, and he wasn’t there. But Grace – beautiful, _strong,_ incredible Grace – had held onto her grandson whilst he cried in hospital corridors, even as she was hurting herself. She’d been the one to get him through it, to be there for him. And she didn’t hate Aaron – she never would. And Graham has grown to find that he can’t either, even if he’ll be mad at him until hell freezes over. But he knows how it is to hurt, to want desperately to hide, to run away from problems and pretend they aren’t growing out of control. And he’s gotten through that, come out the other side. And, heaven forbid, if Grace were to…

If she weren’t around no more.

Graham would look out for Ryan, no doubt about it.

But he’d try and be there for Aaron too.

For her sake.

Because to her, family is everything. 

“Do they know where she is?” Grace asks, still quiet. “Are they worried?”

 _Do they even care about her?_ Graham thinks, but keeps it to himself. _Are they even still alive?_

“If they’re out there,” he says instead, “they’ll come looking eventually, I reckon. But…well. In the meantime…”

A slight smile softens Grace’s face.

“We’ll have to make do, won’t we?” she says.

Graham can’t help but smile too. “Something like that.”

“Gramps. Grandad. _Graham.”_

Graham jolts awake, bewildered. “Huh? Whatisit–?”

He blinks rapidly, looking around, before he catches sight of Ryan next to him, leaning over the arm rest of the rather uncomfortable hospital chair he’d apparently dozed off in.

“Wake up!” Ryan hisses, before glancing back over his shoulder. There’s a startled look in his eyes, and that _immediately_ drags Graham from bleary to alert.

“What is it? They called you up yet?” he asks, sitting up.

“No,” Ryan replies, and Graham’s eyes flick to where his grandson his still pressing a jacket against the wound on his hand. The bleeding seemed to have stopped about – well, he’s not sure how long ago, since he’s fallen asleep and all, but it had to have been only about ten or so minutes after they got sat down. “Not yet. But look!”

Ryan nods with his head over to the main desk, and Graham instantly realises what’s got him so worked up.

Yaz is standing just beyond the automatic doors of the A&E, laptop clutched in her hands and glancing around – presumably looking for the two of them. That in itself wouldn’t be so alarming – only she isn’t alone.

“Who’s _that?_ ” Graham asks, frowning at the woman standing beside Yaz. Dark-skinned, broad shoulders, decked in a brown leather jacket and dull t-shirt. He doesn’t think he recognises her, and yet here’s something about her face that looks vaguely familiar – the same way people had sometimes when he was driving buses around Sheffield, before he recognised them enough times to realise that they were regulars.

“She were at VOR,” Ryan says, urgent. “That first night. The Doctor saw her, and she said she were some kind of –”

But he doesn’t finish, because Yaz clocks them, and immediately makes a beeline for them. The woman follows immediately behind, looking at the two of them with a scrutinising gaze that reminds Graham, uncomfortably, of one of his strict school teachers.

“Guys,” Yaz says, clearly relieved to see them, even as tension pinches her brow. “Are you ok? Did they see you yet?”

“Not yet,” Ryan says, his eyes flitting between Yaz and the woman behind her. “But Yaz, what –”

“This is Ruth,” she introduces. “She was at the house – she’s going to help us. But she said –”

“Now, hold on just a minute,” Graham says, sitting up in his chair and hoping to exude as much authority as possible as he levels the woman – Ruth, apparently – with as stern a gaze as he can muster. “Who are you exactly? And why were you at that house?”

“It doesn’t matter,” Ruth replies, before opening her mouth to speak again.

“It bloody does matter,” Graham interrupts before she can actually say anything. “If you –”

“Graham, please,” Yaz cuts in, and the tone of her voice makes him stop – that edge of desperation that he never usually hears from her. “She said she’d help us find the Doctor.”

Graham’s brow immediately wrinkles, doubtful and suspicious in equal measure. “And what’s it got to do with her?”

He’s still got his eyes fixed on Ruth, untrusting, and sees the moment when she decides to ignore him and Yaz completely to focus on Ryan instead.

“How bad is it?” she asks, all brusque and practical, without a hint of concern.

“It, uh,” Ryan stutters, shrinking back a little under the scrutiny, before he sits himself up, clearly trying to be braver than he feels. “It’s fine.”

“It needs stitches,” Graham corrects, protectiveness bristling in his chest like there’s a bird trapped in his ribcage. He glances back to Ruth, watching as she reaches across and wraps her hand around Ryan’s arm, dragging the injured hand towards her.

“Hey!” Graham says, half-standing – but then he stops. She’s very carefully taking away the jacket away from Ryan’s hand and examining the wound. Despite her tone, she’s gentle with him, seemingly taking care to not hurt him. But even if Graham just wants her to get _away_ from his grandson, what’s he actually going to do? Knock her out the way, whilst she’s still holding onto his hand? That would just hurt Ryan more.

She glances at him for a moment, like she can tell what he’s thinking, before she replaces the jacket firmly. Ryan winces slightly, before pressing his uninjured hand on top of the clothing, keeping it firmly in place.

“Come with me,” she says to Ryan, before walking away through the seats. For a moment, Ryan doesn’t do anything, frozen with confusion and indecision and probably a multitude of other things besides. When she realises that he isn’t following, Ruth looks back over her shoulder with a scowl, not slowing in her pace.

“ _Quickly,”_ she says.

At that, Ryan jumps up and hurries after her, jacket trailing. Graham watches, thoughts lost to the wind as the pair of them head to the main desk and Ruth begins talking urgently to the member of staff. Irritatingly, they’re out of earshot.

He feels Yaz sit down beside him, still clutching the laptop in her arms.

“Yaz, who _is_ she?” Graham asks.

“The Doctor said she were some kind of government agent,” Yaz replies, voice hushed, which had _not_ been what Graham had been expecting, to put it lightly.

“ _What?_ ” he says, glancing to look at Yaz in disbelief for a moment, before snapping his gaze back to where Ruth stands with Ryan.

“I _know,_ ” Yaz replies. “But I think she might have been right. She were at VOR the other night, and then she were at O’s house just now, looking for stuff. And she _knew_ things – knew who I was. That the Doctor’s been taken. And she were at VOR that morning we went, remember? Pretending to be health and safety.”

And that’s what it must have been – that vague recognition. He can remember her now – all smiles and cheer, like nothing was wrong with the world.

The change between then and now is, frankly, so startling that Graham can see the whole _secret agent_ thing making some sort of sense.

“But can we trust her?” Graham asks, watching as Ruth pulls something out of her pocket – a card, which she flashes at the person on the desk, who blinks a few times in surprise. “Why’s she want to help us find the Doc?”

“She wants to find Barton, I think,” Yaz replies. “But Graham, she knew how to use that program on the laptop to track the Doctor’s card. She did it whilst I were driving here.”

Something desperately like hope flickers dangerously in his chest. “And she found where it is?”

“Yeah, she got something,” Yaz replies. Both of them are watching now, as a small flurry of activity begins around the desk. Someone in blue scrubs comes along, giving Ruth a disapproving look, but taking Ryan through with them.

Whatever Ruth had said or shown them, she’s clearly got them to jump Ryan ahead in the queue.

“But can we _trust her?”_ Graham asks again, trying to ignore the anxiety that grips his chest as Ryan goes out of sight. He’ll be fine – he knows he will. The doctors will take care of him. But he still can’t shake that sense of _finality_ hospitals always seem to give him, like one day him or someone he cares about is gonna get taken through one of those doors and never come back out.

“I don’t think we’ve got a choice,” Yaz says, her voice even quieter now. “Graham – it was on the radio. Barton’s trying to pin the explosion on _us._ ”

Graham snaps his head to look at her. “He’s _what?_ But –”

“He thinks we’re _dead,_ but now we’re here – if he sees that Ryan came here, sees the records…” Yaz says, eyes flickering restlessly. The people in the waiting room around them aren’t listening in, all too busy in their own heads, their own lives. But suddenly, they feel almost like a _threat._ Eyes and ears.

“He’s not gonna see,” Graham says, trying to convince himself. He watches Ruth, who has moved to sit on a chair near the desk, somehow managing to blend in with the rest of the waiting room populace. “How would he see? The chances have gotta be so small –”

“But data is his thing,” Yaz hisses. “And he’ll be looking out for us, won’t he? Just in case.”

Dread pools in his stomach, heavy and unsettling. “You really think so?”

“I don’t think we can afford to think that he won’t,” she replies. “Because if he does…”

“What?” Graham asks when she doesn’t finish, huffing a laugh. “You think he’ll have us tracked down or something?”

No answer. Graham turns to look at her, that dread climbing the walls of his stomach and creeping up his throat. Yaz looks completely, terrifyingly serious about this.

“ _Yaz,_ ” he says.

“I don’t know,” she says, shaking her head slightly. Her gaze flicks to meet his – scared and defiant in equal measure. And oh, if that look doesn’t remind him so much of the Doc…

He lets that thought settle for a moment, before turning his attention to the much more concerning problem at hand.

“What do we do, then?” he muses aloud. “Follow whatever this woman has found and hope the Doc is there, hope we can get her out? Hope no one tries to arrest us in the meantime?”

“The Doctor’d do it. Even if there were no hope,” Yaz says, that grim determination overshadowing the fear that still lingers on the edges of her expression. “And we got out of that building with no hope, didn’t we?”

Despite everything, Graham can’t help but smile a little at that. “Yeah. Yeah, I suppose you’re right.” He huffs a laugh. “Hell, doin’ stuff without a hope was a normal Saturday afternoon for us not that long ago, weren’t it?”

Back before the Doctor had gone off without warning.

He can imagine how Yaz is feeling now – just got her friend back, and now she’s disappeared all over again.

“It were,” Yaz says, not looking at Graham, but instead fixing her gaze on the back of Ruth’s head. “And if Ruth is who she says she is – if she’s really gonna help us…we might have more of a chance than usual.”

And that really would be something, Graham can’t help but think, as the pair of them sink into a worried silence.

He considers Ruth for a moment, trying to figure her out. The way she’s barged in and taken over, not unlike the Doctor herself. The way she stared down at him, unimpressed and unintimidated when he questioned her. The way she held herself – confident, assured, and radiating a kind of _dangerous_ edge that he couldn’t quite explain.

The way she’d carefully looked over Ryan’s injury and made sure not to hurt him.

The way she seems to be bringing them all in on this, even though she could probably get what she wants on her own.

He decides he doesn’t completely trust Ruth – not _yet_ , anyway. But then, he’s probably gonna be second guessing a _lot_ of people he meets from here on out, after O well and truly fooled all of them. Graham prides himself of being a pretty good guess of character, after all – he might not be able to take microwaves apart or tear down corruption, but he likes to think he’s not half bad at understanding _people._ At figuring out who they are, what makes them tick. At knowing when they’re lying.

Whoever O really is, the persona he’d created for himself had been _very_ convincing.

“Who do you think he is, really?” he asks. “How do you think he knows her?”

Yaz catches onto his meaning immediately, shaking her head slightly, brow furrowed. “I don’t know. She didn’t – she didn’t recognise him at _all._ Surely, he can’t have been someone that important to her, could he? I thought she said she got most things back?”

But she sounds like she’s trying to convince herself more than anything. Graham sighs.

“You and I both know that she’s got more missing from her memories than she lets on,” Graham says – but then, maybe that’s uncharitable. Yaz’s face twists, clearly agreeing with his line of thinking.

“I know, but,” she says, “this is different, I think. She really had no idea. And she’s been friends with him before she even met us, and she still didn’t know who he was.”

Maybe if O’s pretence had been enough to fool the Doc when she had _all_ her memories, maybe Graham can let himself off for not seeing the lies for what they’d been.

He’d fooled the _Doc,_ who’s practically built her life on seeking out truth.

“He’s probably a stalker. Angry ex, or something,” Graham says, trying to come up with something comfortably logical, something that makes sense, even though it doesn’t really add up. After all, it’s hard to imagine the Doctor dating someone long enough to have an ex in the first place. But there had been something between them, hadn’t there? He’d picked up on _that,_ at least. “Probably didn’t even know her all that long. That’s why he didn’t say who he really was before the train crash. Or after.”

But Yaz is shaking her head, still not convinced.

“He knew her code, though,” she says. “How could he know that if he –?”

Before she can finish, Ruth’s head snaps up, just before a set of doors swing open and Ryan re-emerges from whatever lies beyond, hand neatly wrapped in a bandage. Graham can’t help the sense of relief that immediately rushes through him. He stands immediately, Yaz promptly following suit as he moves through the chairs and straight towards his grandson. The moment he’s close enough, he can’t help but pull the boy into a hug.

“Whoa,” Ryan says, voice muffled into his shoulder. “I’m ok, Gramps.”

But he’s hugging him back all the same.

“I know,” Graham says, his voice a little raspy. “I know you are, son.”

Just like they both know this hug isn’t really about Ryan’s cut up hand.

He hears the sound of someone clearing their throat, and pulls away from Ryan and glances to his left, only to find Ruth looking at him impatiently.

“We’re going,” she says. “Now.”

“Well, you’ll get no argument from me,” he says, ignoring his own irritation at her tone – because there’s no way he’s going to stay any longer in this place than he has to. In fact, he fully intends to be _the first_ one out, and immediately heads straight towards the sliding doors. He doesn’t look to see if the others are behind him, and only feels that underlying tension leave his bones when he steps outside and is hit in the face with a lungful of cold, night air.

“Where are we going, then?” he asks, turning back to look at Yaz, before his glaze flicks over to Ruth, who stands just behind her.

“Don’t worry about it,” Ruth says, already moving past, taking the lead as she crosses the road in front of A&E and strides towards the car park. “I’ll get us there.”

“Wait –” says Yaz, jogging after her. “I’m driving.”

Ruth just laughs at that. “No, you’re not.”

“ _Uh,_ so _,_ ” Ryan says from beside Graham, “what’s going on?”

“Wish I knew, son. Wish I knew,” Graham sighs, before crossing over the road himself and moving to catch up. “I’ll tell you in the TARDIS. Come on – or they’ll leave without us, given half the chance.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry you don't get to see what's happening with the Doctor in this one, but I absolutely HAD to get that flashback scene in there somewhere and this was the best place for it. I actually didn't plan to write that scene at all (I say, as if I planned any of this), but around when I was working on Chapter 2 and 3, I did a deep-dive into canon on Grace content because I wanted to scrape the barrel for any details on her, and I found that conversation Graham and Aaron have in Resolution and waaaaaaaaaaails I got so many Grace, Aaron and Ryan feelings, and needed to offload them somehow. Also, I'd been rereading Halcyon Days by riptheh at the time and I maaaaay have desperately wanted to write an injured Doctor appearing at the doorstep out of the blue hahaha
> 
> Also, dissociative fugue or fugue state is a real thing, although it tends to come with amnesia related to psychological trauma rather than retrograde amnesia caused by a head injury, as Graham incorrectly told you. I think Grace's concern here was that the Doctor's injury wasn't wholly caused by hitting her head, but perhaps something traumatic she saw before that (because, um, she WAS tracking down people who were trading human organs on the black market SO YKNOW, LIGHT SUBJECT). If you want my two cents, though, I'm pretty sure it wasn't fugue here - just the Doctor being the Doctor. ("You mean you don't know? But this is your fic?" I hear some of you ask, whilst the others who are writers nod sagely in the background, knowing that none of us have ever had control over a single character ever HAHAH)
> 
> Anyway! Hope you enjoy, and let me know what you think! As always, feel free to come and holler at me over at my tumblr (@picnokinesis)


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